Division 

Section 


/ 


THE  DYNAMIC  OF  CHRISTIANITY 


THE  DYNAMIC 
OF  CHRISTIANITY 

a  £>tu&£  of  ttje  ©ital  ana  permanent 
Clement  in  tfje  Christian  Meligton 

BY  ^ 

EDWARD  MORTIMER  CHAPMAN 


Enthroned  above  the  world  although  He  sit, 
Still  is  the  world  in  Him  and  He  in  it ; 
The  self-same  Power  in  yonder  sunset  glows 
That  kindled  in  the  lords  of  Holy  Writ." 

Richard  Hovey. 


BOSTON   AND    NEW   YORK 

HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN   AND  COMPANY 
1904 


COPYRIGHT   1904   BY   EDWARD   MORTIMER   CHAPMAN 
ALL    RIGHTS    RESERVED 

Published  November  IQ04 


To 

I.  N.  C. 


PEEFACE 

A  preface  would  scarce  be  needful  to  this 
little  book  were  it  not  for  a  fear  and  a  hope 
cherished  by  the  Author.  His  fear  is  lest 
some  casual  reader  should  be  tempted  to  num- 
ber him  among  those  who  go  about  to  "  re- 
concile Science  and  Religion."  He  has  no 
claim  upon  the  fellowship  of  that  noble  and 
futile  company.  Their  ideal  is  so  worthy  that 
they  deserve  the  reward  of  all  peacemakers  — 
a  reward  which  he  would  gladly  share.  But 
he  is  hindered  from  seeking  it  in  their  society 
by  a  doubt  as  to  the  application  of  the  Beati- 
tude to  those  who  cry  "  Peace,  peace,"  where 
there  is  no  quarrel.  The  reconciliation  of 
Science  and  Religion  seems  to  him  to  be 
like  an  attempt  to  harmonize  the  fact  of  sun- 
rise with  the  joy  of  walking  and  working  in 
the  light. 

His  hope  is  that  he  may  succeed  in  remind- 


viii  PREFACE 

ing  a  generation  very  busy  with  the  statics  of 
Religion  —  its  organizations  and  its  machin- 
eries, its  creeds  and  its  charities  —  of  the 
principle  of  life  and  power  which  gives  them 
their  significance.  It  may  be  that  this  princi- 
ple and  that  which  has  given  to  the  last  cen- 
tury of  adventure  in  the  realm  of  Physical 
Science  its  peculiar  and  compelling  fascina- 
tion will  prove  to  be  identical. 

The  theme  is  so  large  that  many  essays 
must  be  made  toward  its  exposition  and  its 
application  to  life.  Some  of  these  will  prove 
to  be  successes  and  others  failures ;  the  fail- 
ures being  perhaps  no  less  needful  to  the 
ultimate  prevalence  of  truth  than  the  suc- 
cesses. Since  that  which  is  set  down  between 
these  covers  has  been  born  of  experience,  the 
Author  ventures  to  hope  that  it  may  find 
place  in  the  more  cheerful  category;  but  if 
not,  that  it  may  at  least  be  numbered  among 
the  Failures  that  Help. 

E.  M.  C. 

The  Homestead, 

Old  Saybrook,  Conn., 
23  July,  1904. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

I.   Introduction 1 

II.   The  Zeitgeist 22 

III.  The  Present  State  of  Popular  Theologi- 

cal Thought 47 

IV.  The  Religion  of  the  People    ...  72 
V.   The  Social  Unrest 96 

VI.   The  Thesis 121 

VII.   The  Witness  of  Scripture   ....  142 

VIII.  The  Witness  of  the  Christian  Church  168 

IX.  The  Witness  of  Individual  Experience     .  193 

X.   The  New  Freedom  of  Faith      .        .        .  221 

XI.  The  New  Meaning  of  Some  Old  Words      .  255 

XII.  The  New  Harmonies  of  Revelation        .  288 

Appendix  :  Synopsis   of  Argument    .        .  321 

Index 327 


THE 
DYNAMIC  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

I 

INTRODUCTION 

More  than  six  decades  have  now  passed  since 
Macaulay  imagined  his  famous  traveler  from 
New  Zealand  perched  upon  a  broken  arch  of 
London  Bridge  to  sketch  the  ruins  of  St. 
Paul's.  The  essayist's  contention  was  that 
even  in  the  day  when  London  should  have 
become  a  desolation,  and  the  centre  of  her 
formal  worship  a  heap,  the  Church  of  Rome 
might  still  prove  to  be  an  undiminished  power 
in  the  world.  He  argued  with  characteristic 
grace  and  assurance  that  theology  was  not, 
and  could  not  become,  a  progressive  science  ; 
that  Socrates,  in  confuting  the  little  atheist 
Aristodemus,  had  anticipated  all  that  is  really 
significant  in  Paley's  argument  from  design  ; 
and  that  the  fact  of  Sir  Thomas  More's  readi- 
ness to  die  for  his  faith  in  transubstantiation 
is  sufficient  to  lead  us  to  expect  that  any  man 


2  THE   DYNAMIC  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

of  similar  intelligence  and  honesty  may  hold 
the  doctrine  now  as  firmly  as  Henry  V Ill's 
chancellor  held  it,  since  our  advance  in  science, 
great  as  it  has  been,  scarcely  served  to  make 
it  more  unreasonable  in  the  nineteenth  than 
it  must  have  seemed  to  be  in  the  sixteenth 
century.  His  process  of  reasoning  applied  to 
natural  theology  applies  a  fortiori,  of  course, 
to  theology  based  upon  what  Macaulay  called 
"  revelation."  "  All  divine  truth  is,  according 
to  the  doctrine  of  the  Protestant  Churches, 
recorded  in  certain  books.  ...  A  Christian 
of  the  fifth  century  with  a  Bible  is  neither 
better  nor  worse  situated  than  a  Christian  of 
the  nineteenth  century  with  a  Bible,  candor 
and  natural  acuteness  being,  of  course,  sup- 
posed equal." 

Nothing  could  better  illustrate  the  trans- 
formation that  the  years  have  wrought  in  the 
Protestant  attitude  toward  theology  than  the 
mere  quotation  of  such  a  passage  as  the  above. 
It  is  to  be  remembered  that  in  writing  it 
Macaulay  hardly  misrepresented  the  thought 
of  his  day  in  England  and  America.  He 
perceived  the  Evangelical  to  be  scarcely  less 
bound  by  the  traditions  of  the  Fathers  than 
the  Tractarian,  though  they  were  of  course 


INTRODUCTION  3 

very  different  Fathers.  The  Nonconformist  as 
well  as  the  Churchman  was  to  a  considerable 
extent  an  antiquarian ;  and  the  results  of 
his  antiquarian  research,  so  far  as  they  had 
theological  significance,  concerned  an  insti- 
tution known  as  the  Church,  rather  than  a 
body  of  truth  closely  related  to  life.  The 
"  Leben  Jesu  "  of  Strauss  had  been  published 
but  five  years,  and  its  author  was  in  disgrace 
even  in  Germany.  George  Eliot's  translation 
was  not  yet  begun,  nor  to  be  issued  until 
1846.  Few  English  students  of  theology  read 
German,  and  some  of  those  who  did,  read  it 
upon  the  sly.  And  twenty  years  were  still  to 
pass  before  Colenso  should  precipitate  the 
great  question  of  the  Higher  Criticism  of  the 
Bible  upon  his  unwilling  countrymen. 

The  Unitarians  kept  something  of  the  tem- 
per of  the  elder  Maurice,  whose  enthusiasm 
we  are  told  "  went  out,  like  that  of  so  many 
others  of  his  class,  into  politics  rather  than 
religion."  1  The  avowed  champions  of  unbe- 
lief had  not  yet  revolted  against  the  crass 
misrepresentations  and  travesties  of  religion 
which  men  like  the  elder  Mill  were  not 
ashamed    to   perpetuate,    and   which,  to  the 

1  Tulloch,  Religious  Thought  in  Britain,  p.  263. 


4  THE   DYNAMIC  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

amazement  of  later  generations,  seem  to  have 
been  not  without  some  influence  upon  the 
thought  of  his  far  greater  son.  The  more  in- 
tellectual among  the  Presbyterians  and  Inde- 
pendents were  largely  occupied  with  barren 
doctrinal  controversy.  In  the  realm  of  philo- 
sophy, students  at  the  universities  heard  much 
talk  of  "  progress  of  the  species,  dark  ages, 
and  the  like,  but  the  hungry  young  looked  up 
to  their  spiritual  nurses,  and  for  food  were 
bidden  eat  the  east  wind."  1 

It  may  be  answered  that  when  Macaulay 
wrote  his  "  Edinburgh  Review  "  essay  on  Yon 
Ranke's  "  History  of  the  Popes,"  from  which 
I  have  quoted,  a  new  era  had  been  ushered  in 
by  Coleridge  and  Maurice,  torch-bearers  of 
the  higher  and  richer  thought  of  Germany. 
This  is  true,  and  with  them  should  be  num- 
bered Thomas  Erskine ;  while  Wordsworth's 
parallel  influence  in  the  realm  of  poetry,  and 
Carlyle's  in  the  field  of  general  literature, 
but  especially  of  the  ethical  interpretation 
of  history,  is  not  to  be  overlooked.  Maurice, 
the  near  spiritual  kinsman  of  both  Coleridge 
and  Erskine,  had  but  just  published  his  "King- 
dom of  Christ,"  —  it  appeared  in    1838,  — 

1  Sartor  Resartus,  bk.  ii.  c.  iii.;   Tulloch,  p.  170. 


INTRODUCTION  5 

and  the  sub-title  of  this  notable  work,  "Hints 
on  the  Principles,  Ordinances,  and  Constitu- 
tion of  the  Catholic  Church,  in  Letters  to  a 
Member  of  the  Society  of  Friends,"  reveals 
that  institutional  bent  or  tendency  which  has 
proven  itself  to  be  at  once  the  strength  and 
the  limitation  of  so  many  English  theologi- 
ans. 

Nor  should  the  fact  be  overlooked  that 
it  always  takes  time,  and  what  often  seems 
to  be  a  disproportionate  and  unreasonable 
length  of  time,  for  the  results  of  theological 
investigation  to  find  their  way  out  of  the  study 
and  the  treatise  into  the  general  thought 
and  speech  of  men.  It  is  not  enough  to  say 
that  the  man  of  the  street  does  not  care  about 
such  things.  He  probably  does  not  care 
about  their  mere  academic  aspect,  but  in  their 
relation  to  life  they  interest  him  and  often 
interest  him  profoundly.  It  frequently  hap- 
pens, moreover,  that  the  "  man  of  letters  "  is 
among:  the  worst  informed  and  the  least  in- 
telligent  of  the  observers  of  theological  and 
religious  phenomena.  Like  the  cockney  who 
counts  his  ignorance  of  country  ways  the 
cachet  of  his  town-bred  superiority,  he  chooses 
to  hold  aloof  from  any  special  acquaintance 


6  THE   DYNAMIC   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

with  this  branch  of  what  he  very  likely  calls 
a  pseudo-science.  If  he  be  a  portrayer  of  the 
manners  of  the  time,  as  an  essayist  or  a 
novelist,  he  has  of  course  a  theologian  among 
the  lay  figures  in  his  studio.  Occasionally  he 
makes  large  use  of  him,  profiting  especially 
by  that  infirmity  of  position,  that  feebleness 
of  "  stance,"  to  filch  a  word  from  golf,  which 
makes  him  such  an  easy  prey  to  the  attacks  of 
his  master ;  for,  be  it  observed,  this  figure  is 
always  set  up  to  be  overthrown.  He  is  care- 
fully provided  beforehand  with  so  much  of 
the  theological  equipment  of  day  before  yes- 
terday as  his  master's  odds  and  ends  of  yes- 
terday may  suffice  to  vanquish.  An  excellent 
type  of  this  sort  of  creature  appears  in  the 
late  Mr.  Harold  Frederic's  "  Theron  Ware." 
Mrs.  Humphry  Ward  laid  him  under  tribute 
for  the  original  of  "  Robert  Elsmere."  He  it 
is  who  is  periodically  ground  to  powder  when 
Professor  Goldwin  Smith  essays  Old  Testa- 
ment topics ;  while  the  man  who  clamors  from 
time  to  time  in  the  newspapers  and  maga- 
zines for  a  "  prayer-test "  would  find  his 
occupation  gone  without  him. 

The  contention  of  Macaulay  with  reference 
to  theology  is  only  another   case  in    point. 


INTRODUCTION  7 

Though  tricked  out  in  seemly  dress  enough,  it 
was  in  reality  nothing  less  than  a  damning  ac- 
cusation, and  none  could  have  known  better 
than  he  that  the  doom  of  theology  as  a  fit  sub- 
ject for  the  consideration  of  intelligent  men 
would  be  sounded  if  he  should  succeed  in  sub- 
stantiating his  claim.    Nor  is  this  the  less  true 
because  many  theologians  of  the  most  ortho- 
dox type  would  have   rejoiced  to   agree  with 
him;   for  the  ultimate  nature    of   a    current 
theological  system  has  been  a  favorite  premiss 
of  the  most  devout  believers  as  well  as  the 
most  cynical  scoffers,  though  they  have  rea- 
soned from  it  to  utterly  diverse  conclusions. 
Indeed,  among  those  who  read  this  essay  was 
very  likely  one  man  of  thirty-nine  from  whom 
Macaulay's  contention  would  have  won  a  glad 
assent,  —  a  man  whose  efforts  in   behalf  of 
the  dependent  classes  in  English  society  were 
just  beginning  to  assume  influential  propor- 
tions, and  who  was  one   day  to  be   counted 
among  the  most    significant   and   beneficent 
forces  in  the  social  life  of  the  century.    The 
pronounced  evangelicalism   of   Lord  Ashley, 
better  known  to  the  world  as  the  seventh  Earl 
of  Shaftesbury,  was  of  precisely  the  type  that 
dreaded    theological   change,    and    was   pre- 


8  THE  DYNAMIC   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

pared  to  deny  the  possibility  of  any  appre- 
ciable theological  development,  while  it  rev- 
erenced theology  as  the  mother  of  sciences. 
Though  Lord  Shaftesbury  never  laid  claim  to 
the  gift  of  tongues,  he  possessed  one  tongue 
whose  facility,  eloquence,  and  occasional  acerb- 
ity made  it  quite  equal  to  the  work  of  many. 
"  I  have  not,"  said  he  on  one  occasion,  "  that 
faculty  for  mild  speech  which  distinguishes 
some  persons  in  this  country."  l  He  justified 
the  confession  by  characterizing  "  Ecce  Homo  " 
as  "  the  most  pestilential  book  ever  vomited 
from  the  jaws  of  hell."  2  He  "  loathed  with 
the  utmost  abhorrence  "  Colenso's  book,  even 
while  with  characteristic  high-mindedness  he 
protested  against  Bishop  Gray's  summary 
methods  of  disciplining  its  author.3  He  called 
heaven  to  witness  how  absolutely  he  ab- 
horred the  theology  of  Jowett,4  though  he 
would  not  put  him  down  by  dishonoring  his 
office.  Perhaps  most  significant  of  all  was  his 
letter  to  Pusey  during  the  "  Essays  and  Re- 
views "  controversy,  in  which  he  said :  "  Time, 
space,  and  divergent  opinions  have  separated 

1  Edwin   Hodder,    The   Life  and    Work  of  the  Earl  of 
Shaftesbury,  K.  G.,  iii.  160. 

2  Id.  p.  1C4.  8  Id.  p.  1G8.  4  Id.  i.  170.   . 


INTRODUCTION 


us  for  many  years.  ...  We  will  fight  about 
those  another  day ;  in  this  '  we  must  con- 
tend earnestly  for  the  faith  once  delivered  to 
the  Saints ; '  and  it  must  be  done  together 


now."  x 

Yet  at  this  very  period,  though  neither 
Macaulay  nor  Shaftesbury  was  clear  eyed 
enough  to  discern  the  signs  of  its  advent,  an 
era  of  theological  development  was  opening 
which  in  its  ultimate  results  is  likely  to  prove 
to  be  the  most  significant  since  the  Refornia- 
tion.  The  day  of  the  barren  deistic  rational- 
ist of  the  eighteenth  century  was  past.  The 
Evangelical  Revival  as  a  revival  had  practi- 
cally spent  its  force,  though  its  substantial 
fruits  remained.  The  German  leaven  was  at 
work.  Schleiermacher,  who  died  in  1834,  was 
still  little  but  a  name  to  most  Englishmen 
and  Americans,  with  the  exception  of  such 
as  knew  their  Coleridge  well.  But  his  inter- 
preters were  at  the  door.  The  ethics  of  Kant 
were  receiving  practical  application  to  the 
problems  of  life  at  the  hands  of  Carlyle,  and 
coming  to  such  men  as  Froude  like  a  new 
gospel. 

1  Edwin    Hodder,   The   Life   and    Work  of  the   Earl  of 
Shaftesbury,  K.  G.t  iii.  166. 


10  THE   DYNAMIC   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

With  respect  to  Hegel  and  his  influence 
the  case  was  somewhat  different.  There  is  a 
story  that  Comte  once  expressed  a  half -petu- 
lant wish  that  Hegel  would  publish  a  little 
book  summing  up  his  philosophy  "  succinctly 
and  in  French ; "  to  which  the  great  philoso- 
pher replied  that  his  system  was  capable  of 
expression  "  ni  succinctement,  ni  en  f  rancais." 
The  saying,  though  doubtless  apocryphal,  is 
none  the  less  significant.  The  practical  Eng- 
lishman with  his  institutional  tendency  was 
not  very  likely  to  become  a  student  of  so 
great  and  abstruse  a  system,  and  still  less 
likely  to  become  its  apostle.  In  Germany  upon 
the  appearance  of  Hegel's  philosophy,  "  The- 
ology," as  a  distinguished  critic  has  said, 
"  was  happy  at  the  supreme  good  fortune  that 
had  come  to  her,  —  her  ability  to  speak  in 
her  own  tongue  the  thoughts  of  her  old  en- 
emy." 1  But  among  English-speaking  peoples 
the  practical  theological  outcome  of  the  He- 
gelian philosophy  has  long  been  closely  asso- 
ciated with  the  work  of  Strauss.  Strauss  has 
been  cleverly  characterized  as  the  Franken- 
stein of  Hegelianism.  He  was  its  unnatural 
by-product,  —  made,  not  begotten ;  and  he  has 

1  Fairbairn,  Christ  in  Theology,  p.  222. 


INTRODUCTION  11 

perhaps  done  more  than  any  other  writer  to 
bring  German  influence  in  theology  under 
suspicion  among  the  mass  of  British  and 
American  Christians.  Even  at  this  late  day 
great  numbers  of  intelligent  persons,  to  whom 
the  works  of  Baur  and  his  Tubingen  brethren 
are  sealed  books,  know  the  name  and  dread 
the  power  of  Hegel.  Of  the  real  and  abid- 
ing service  to  the  faith  which  the  Tubingen 
school  rendered  in  compelling  the  adoption 
of  a  new  and  scientific  historical  method  in 
theology  they  know  nothing.  Shaftesbury  and 
Pusey,  with  the  multitudes  for  whom  they 
stood,  when  they  thought  of  theological  devel- 
opment, beheld  it  branded  with  the  mark  of 
the  Teutonic  Beast. 

In  America  the  situation  was  apparently 
though  not  essentially  different.  The  ultra- 
Calvinism  of  the  Fathers  had  from  its  very 
nature  compelled  "  improvement."  It  was  a 
perpetual  challenge  to  men's  reason.  There 
was  a  haunting  power  about  it  quite  distinct 
from  its  almost  regal  place  among  the  systems, 
that  forbade  its  contemptuous  or  cavalier 
rejection.  Its  preeminent  qualities  fascinated 
as  well  as  repelled  the  student.  Hence  arose 
endless  more    or  less    successful    tamperings 


12  THE  DYNAMIC   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

with  it.  It  stood  like  some  vast  structure,  — 
a  tour  de  force  of  other  days,  —  ill  adapted 
to  the  needs  of  the  present,  but  too  splendid 
to  be  destroyed;  though  its  interior  might 
be  remodeled,  and  so  many  minor  changes 
wrought  upon  its  outside  as  to  tone  down  its 
pristine  ruggedness  and,  it  must  be  added, 
belittle  its  original  majesty.  So  in  almost 
every  generation  after  Edwards  there  was  a 
new  school  to  which  a  newer  school  succeeded. 
Thus  the  general  notion  of  theological 
change  and  development  was  less  strange  to 
the  men  of  New  than  to  those  of  Old  Eng- 
land. But  it  is  to  be  noted  that  it  was  change 
within  definite  limits.  The  content  of  revela- 
tion was  fixed.  There  was  a  certain  sum  of 
truth  delivered  to  men.  It  might  be  rear- 
ranged. Deeper  research  might  result  in  the 
discovery  of  heretofore  hidden  things.  The 
immediate  limits  of  the  mine  in  which  it  was 
man's  privilege  to  delve  might  be  unknown  to 
him,  but  they  were  none  the  less  limits,  pre- 
cisely as  a  "  coal  measure  "  may  reach  for  an 
indeterminate  distance  into  a  mountain-side, 
but  still  be  defined  by  the  general  shape  and 
size  of  the  mountain.  There  was  an  academic 
assent  given  to   Robinson's    historic    dictum 


INTRODUCTION  13 

that  more  truth  might  yet  break  out  from  the 
Word  of  God,  but  it  was  a  rather  hard  say- 
ing even  when  the  Word  of  God  to  men 
was  supposed  to  be  altogether  included  within 
the  covers  of  a  book.  In  short,  the  present 
dispensation  was  generally  admitted  to  be 
an  ordo  ordinatus  rather  than  an  ordo  ordi- 
nans. 

Here  and  there,  to  be  sure,  a  voice  was 
raised  in  protest ;  none  clearer  or  braver  than 
Horace  Bushnell's.  Yet  in  a  singular  sense 
Bushnell  stood 

"  Between  two  worlds,  —  one  dead, 
The  other  powerless  to  be  born." 

He  reminds  us  of  those  souls  in  Tintoretto's 
great  Judgment  Scene  who,  though  arisen, 
are  not  yet  wholly  risen.  The  bars  of  their 
earthly  prison-house  have  burst  and  they  are 
living  in  the  free  upper  air,  but  not  yet  un- 
hampered by  the  clods.  This  is  in  no  sense 
to  belittle  Bushnell's  place  or  work.  Had  he 
cut  loose  from  all  that  was  temporary  in  the 
thought  of  his  day,  it  is  possible  that  our 
debt  to  him  might  have  been  less  rather  than 
greater.  For  in  the  literal  rather  than  the 
tropical  sense,  Bushnell's  work  has  proven 
itself    to    be    profoundly   conservative.    His 


14  THE   DYNAMIC   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

greatness  is  the  substantial  greatness  of  the 
reinterprete^  the  rebuilder,  and  the  reformer, 
rather  than  the  notoriety  of  the  mere  revolu- 
tionist. Had  he  held  a  different  view  of  the 
Fall,  for  instance,  his  ability  to  interpret  the 
significance  of  the  Atonement  might  conceiv- 
ably have  been  diminished  rather  than  in- 
creased. Had  he  foreseen  the  significance  of 
the  new  doctrine  of  Evolution,  it  is  doubtful 
if  his  message  to  the  men  of  his  day  with 
reference  to  Nature  and  the  Supernatural 
would  have  been  so  intelligible  and  uplifting. 
While  had  he  undertaken  to  grapple  with  the 
modern  science  of  Biblical  Criticism,  he  would 
have  found  it  hard  work  to  convince  those 
about  him  that  there  was  any  common  ground 
for  them  to  stand  on. 

As  things  were,  he  found,  to  quote  the 
luminous  words  of  his  latest  biographer,  that 
"  relief  was  needed  at  four  points  :  first,  from 
a  revivalism  that  ignored  the  law  of  Christian 
growth ;  second,  from  a  conception  of  the 
Trinity  bordering  on  tritheism;  third,  from 
a  view  of  miracles  that  implied  a  suspension 
of  natural  law  ;  and  fourth,  from  a  theory  of 
the  Atonement  that  had  grown  almost  shad- 
owy under  '  improvements,'  yet  still  failed  to 


INTRODUCTION  15 

declare  the  law  of  human  life.  The  time  had 
also  come  when  a  rational,  scientific,  cause- 
and-effect  habit  of  thought  was  imperatively 
required,  not  only  on  these  four  points,  but 
in  the  whole  realm  of  theology."  * 

Now  it  is  preeminently  such  a  "rational, 
scientific,  cause-and-effect  habit  of  thought" 
that  has  been  exerting  its  influence  upon 
every  branch  of  human  knowledge  during  the 
six  decades  since  Macaulay  assured  the  world 
of  1840  that  theology  was  not  a  progressive 
science.  It  has  been  very  learnedly  and  plau- 
sibly contended  that  the  theological  temper 
has  always  been  either  implicitly  or  overtly 
hostile  to  scientific  progress ;  and  the  conten- 
tion voices  one  of  those  half  truths  which 
deceive  quite  as  many  as  they  instruct.  The 
warfare  that  has  seemed  to  exist  between  The- 
ology and  Science  has  really  been  a  conflict 
between  institutionalism  and  science.  It  is 
the  priest  who  has  laboriously  and  painfully 
reared  the  walls  and  completed  the  roof  of  his 
particular  system,  often  at  expense  of  utmost 
personal  sacrifice  be  it  remembered,  to  whom 
the  structural  change  that  accompanies  nat- 
ural growth  seems  dreadful.    There  has  been 

i  T.  T.  Hunger,  Horace  Bushnell,  p.  387. 


16  THE  DYNAMIC  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

no  provision  for  it  in  his  plan.  So  when 
the  prophet  comes  to  tell  him  either  in  the 
name  of  religion  or  of  natural  science  that  his 
whole  structural  system  is  wrong,  and  must 
continue  to  be  wrong  until  he  ceases  to  do 
violence  to  the  organic  by  classing  it  with  the 
inorganic,  he  is  incontinently  met  with  bell, 
book,  and  candle.  Yet  the  prophet  is  no  less 
a  theologian  than  the  priest;  nay,  in  most 
instances  he  is  the  greater  and  the  more  per- 
spicacious theologian,  in  so  far  as  he  sees  the 
subject-matter  of  his  science  to  be  living  and 
continuous  rather  than  dead  and  completed 
revelation.  It  would  be  quite  possible,  too,  to 
counter  upon  those  who  maintain  that  science 
has  always  found  theology  at  odds  with  it 
by  two  equally  plausible  contentions.  One  is 
that  a  vast  number  of  the  discoveries  whereby 
scientific  advance  has  been  accomplished  have 
been  made  possible  by  those  very  systems  of 
education  and  schools  of  learning  which  the 
church  and  priesthood  have  always  fostered. 
The  other  is  that  it  is  to  the  theological  im- 
plications of  his  scientific  hypotheses  that  the 
investigator  often  owes  no  small  part  of  the 
popular  interest  which  it  is  to  his  advantage 
to  arouse. 


INTRODUCTION  17 

Swedenborg,  for  instance,  anticipated  in  his 
mystical  way  the  nebular  hypothesis.  Kant, 
as  early  as  1755,  gave  it  form  and  practi- 
cally established  its  scientific  basis.  Here  was 
the  doctrine  of  evolution  in  embryo,  waiting 
for  general  application  throughout  the  whole 
realm  of  human  thought.  But  it  attracted 
comparatively  little  interest  among  those  mul- 
titudes, the  horizon  of  whose  intelligence  it 
was  finally  to  broaden  so  wonderfully,  until 
Darwin  had  formulated  the  theory  of  Natural 
Selection,  and  his  disciples  began  to  expound 
what  they  supposed  to  be  its  theological 
significance.  Then  the  world  of  plain  people 
began  to  attend  to  the  new  teaching.  A 
feeling  went  abroad  that  here  was  something 
to  be  dealt  with,  pro  or  con ;  and  the  result  has 
been  of  the  greatest  possible  moment.  Darwin, 
to  be  sure,  carefully  avoided  this  phase  of  the 
discussion.  But  Tyndall  and  Huxley  and  Clif- 
ford welcomed  it  so  heartily  that  it  is  scarcely 
too  much  to  say  that  they  are  known  as  theo- 
logians by  many  who  would  be  sorely  puzzled 
to  tell  whether  or  not  they  had  rendered  any 
considerable  service  to  pure  science ;  while  in 
America  great  numbers  of  intelligent  people 
would  forever  remain  in  ignorance  of  Pro- 


18         THE  DYNAMIC  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

fessor  John  Fiske's  special  contribution  to  the 
doctrine  of  evolution',  had  he  not  wisely  and 
suggestively  expounded  it  in  certain  little  the- 
ological treatises  that  found  their  thousands 
of  readers  while  his  "  Cosmic  Philosophy  " 
was  waiting  for  its  hundreds. 

Returning  now  for  the  moment  to  Macau- 
lay's  thesis,  we  may  fairly  reduce  it  to  this 
syllogism.  Systems  of  thought  which  are 
constitutionally  intolerant  of  development  are 
doomed  to  extinction.  Theology  is  thus  consti- 
tutionally intolerant  of  development.  There- 
fore theology  is  doomed  to  extinction.  It  is, 
however,  only  in  the  light  of  the  evolutionary 
notion  of  life  as  a  perpetual  adaptation  to 
environment  that  we  reach  this  conclusion. 
Macaulay  by  no  means  went  so  far.  He  seems 
to  have  felt  instinctively  that  some  provision 
must  be  made  for  the  ineradicable  tendency 
of  men  to  cherish  superstition ;  and  this  pro- 
vision he  believed  that  the  Church  of  Rome 
might  still  be  found  to  furnish  when  the 
ruins  of  St.  Paul's  should  adorn  the  sketch- 
books of  cultivated  New  Zealand  travelers. 
His  difficulty  lay  in  accepting  his  own  major 
premiss ;  the  minor  constituted  his  principal 
contention.    Our  difficulty  lies  with  the  minor ; 


INTRODUCTION  19 

the  major  we  are  coming  to  regard  as  almost 
axiomatic.  It  is  quite  true  that  the  change  of 
position  has  been  made  unwillingly,  and  that 
multitudes  of  honest  folk  have  contended  that 
a  theological  system  which  was  capable  of 
development  could  not  really  interpret  eternal 
truth  to  the  minds  and  hearts  of  men.  But 
that  is  only  to  say  that  theology  has  not 
found  herself  exempt  from  the  same  hard 
conditions  that  have  forced  reconstruction  in 
every  other  field  of  human  thought.  She  has, 
like  astronomy  and  anthropology  and  medi- 
cine, been  forced  to  discover  some  practicable 
path  of  progress  between  the  rocks  of  dog- 
matism and  the  gulf  of  superstition.  It  is 
useless  to  deny  that  there  is  any  such  path, 
and  to  claim  that  the  man  who  searches  for 
it  is  bound  to  find,  like  the  victim  of  Poe's 
"  Pit  and  Pendulum"  adventure,  that  the  wall 
is  so  arranged  as  of  necessity  to  thrust  him 
who  would  fain  creep  about  its  foot  into  the 
abyss.  The  human  mind  will  not  consent  to 
be  thus  put  to  confusion.  Comte  essayed  a 
hopeless  task  when  he  undertook  io  convince 
the  world  that  the  themes  which  had  in  all 
ages  fascinated  some  of  the  greatest  men  were 
not  germane    to    the    human    intellect ;   and 


20         THE   DYNAMIC  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

that  it  was  the  part  of  the  true  philosopher 
to  relegate  them  to  the  limbo  of  chimeras. 
The  dogmatism  of  negation  is  even  more 
antipathetic  to  the  mass  of  men  than  the 
dogmatism  of  assertion.  Nothing  can  be 
more  profoundly  unscientific  than  an  a  priori 
denial  of  religious  experience,  or  an  unwill- 
ingness to  give  candid  and  unbiased  attention 
to  religious  phenomena.  Nor  can  anything 
bring  true  science  into  greater  contempt  than 
the  refusal  to  regard  the  investigation  of  these 
phenomena  and  the  generalizations  which 
such  investigation  appears  to  justify,  as  wor- 
thy of  the  best  thought  and  endeavor  which 
men  can  bring  to  the  task ;  unless,  indeed,  it 
be  an  assumption  upon  the  theologian's  part 
that  all  the  significant  facts  in  his  particular 
realm  have  been  discovered;  that  investiga- 
tion, except  for  the  purposes  of  rearrange- 
ment, is  therefore  futile ;  that  the  content 
of  his  budget  of  premisses  is  fixed ;  and  that 
his  true  work  is  merely  to  manipulate  them 
in  accordance  with  the  well-worn  processes  of 
a  deductive  logic. 

It  is  my  purpose  in  the  chapters  which 
follow  to  state  a  condition ;  to  propound  a 
question ;  and  to  suggest  an  answer.    Condi- 


INTRODUCTION  21 

tion,  question,  and  answer  all  have  their  theo- 
logical implications.  But  the  theological  sub- 
structure which  they  imply  appears  to  me  to 
be  in  no  sense  a  finished  product.  Christianity 
is  not  a  completed  system  gloriously  fash- 
ioned after  the  similitude  of  a  temple,  but 
an  organism  instinct  with  the  power  of  an 
endless  life.  Its  helpful  application  to  the 
affairs  of  men  depends  less  upon  the  discov- 
ery of  some  architectonic  plan,  than  upon  ac- 
quaintance with  the  power  and  principle  of 
its  development.  In  our  reverent  search  after 
this  Dynamic  of  Christianity  we  shall  first 
look  at  the  theological,  religious,  and  social 
conditions  amid  which  it  is  at  work. 


II 

THE  ZEITGEIST 

The  reader  will  remember  that  on  the  even- 
ing after  Faust's  compact  with  Mephistopheles 
he  sat  down  to  translate  the  prologue  of  St. 
John's  Gospel  into  German.  This,  by  reason 
of  the  compact,  had  become  a  forbidden  occu- 
pation, and  he  was  at  once  interrupted  by  the 
howling  of  his  dog,  in  whom  just  then  his  evil 
genius  chanced  to  be  embodied  ;  but  not  until 
he  had  opportunity  to  begin  debate  with  him- 
self upon  the  great  question  which  the  pro- 
logue raises. 

" '  T  is  writ,  '  In  the  Beginning  was  the  Word  ! ' 
I  pause,  perplexed  !  Who  now  will  help  afford  ? 
I  cannot  the  mere  word  so  highly  prize  ; 
I  must  translate  it  otherwise, 
If  by  the  Spirit  guided  as  I  read. 
« In  the  Beginning  was  the  Sense  ! '  Take  heed. 
The  import  of  this  primal  sentence  weigh, 
Lest  thy  too  hasty  pen  be  led  astray  ! 
Is  force  creative  then  of  Sense  the  dower  ? 
4  In  the  Beginning  was  the  Power  ! ' 
Thus  should  it  stand  :  yet  while  the  line  I  trace, 


THE   ZEITGEIST  23 

A  something  warns  me,  once  more  to  efface. 
The  Spirit  aids  !  from  anxious  scruples  freed, 
I  write,  '  In  the  Beginning  was  the  Deed  ! '  " 

Faust,  part  i.  876-89,  Swanwick's  trans. 


It  is  a  tribute  to  the  prophetic  element  in 
Goethe's  genius  that  as  early  as  1808  —  and 
very  probably  a  score  of  years  earlier  —  he 
should  thus  have  made  Faust  forecast  the 
philosophical  temper  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury. It  has  been  eminently  critical  in  its 
attitude  toward  received  opinion  in  every  de- 
partment of  life ;  and  it  has  often  chosen  to 
deal  with  phenomena  as  though  they  were 
ultimate  realities.  The  "  thing  in  itself  "  in 
the  scientific  thought  of  the  century  has  been 
the  Deed  rather  than  the  Word  or  the  Power. 
I  do  not  mean,  of  course,  that  outside  the 
school  of  Comte  men  have  chosen  to  defend 
this  as  a  thesis ;  but  they  have  been  willing  to 
accept  it  as  a  rule  of  life  and  thought. 

Their  experience,  however,  has  not  been 
satisfying.  As  the  century  grew  old,  it  be- 
came increasingly  evident  that  they  could 
never  rest  in  Faust's  position,  though  they 
might  sojourn  there  for  a  time.  A  somewhat 
larger  view  of  the  sphere  and  scope  of  man 
has  been  accepted.    Phenomenon  though  he 


24         THE  DYNAMIC  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

be,  set  amid  kindred  phenomena,  there  is  still 
noumenon-stuff  in  him.  Something  in  his 
personality  bespeaks  his  kinship  with  the 
Power  behind  the  Deed — the  Reason  which 
the  Word  utters.  As  the  shallower  and  more 
materialistic  scientific  doctrine  of  the  first 
three  quarters  of  the  century  was  forecast  by 
Goethe  in  criticising  the  prologue  of  St.  John, 
so  the  deeper  and  more  vital  faith  of  its  later 
years  has  been  suggested  by  Browning  in  his 
comment  upon  the  prologue  of  Genesis. 

"  I  find  first 
Writ  down  for  very  A  B  C  of  fact, 
'  In  the  Beginning  God  made  heaven  and  earth  ; ' 
From  which,  no  matter  with  what  lisp,  I  spell 
And  speak  you  out  a  consequence  —  that  man, 
Man,  —  as  befits  the  made,  the  inferior  thing,  — 
Purposed,  since  made,  to  grow,  not  make  in  turn, 
Yet  forced  to  try  and  make,  else  fail  to  grow,  — 
Formed  to  rise,  reach  at,  if  not  grasp  and  gain 
The  good  beyond  him,  —  which  attempt  is  growth,  — 
Repeats  God's  process  in  man's  due  degree, 
Attaining  man's  proportionate  result,  — 
Creates,  no,  but  resuscitates  perhaps." 

The  Ring  and  the  Booh  —  Prologue. 

The  contrast  between  these  utterances  of 
two  great  interpreters  of  life  separated  by 
fourscore  years  is  even  more  significant  than 
at  once  appears.  It  extends  to  the  manner  as 
well  as  the  matter  of  their  prophecy.    Goethe's 


THE  ZEITGEIST  25 

word  is  graceful,  but  hollow  and  cynical.  It 
is  the  message  of  one  who  has  compassed  life 
in  its  length  and  breadth  only  to  find  it  of 
more  than  doubtful  quality  —  worth  beautify- 
ing and  bedecking,  perhaps,  but  to  be  adorned 
as  a  stage  is  adorned  that  a  play  may  be  elab- 
orately produced.    He  says  in  effect  to  man, 

"  Thou  'rt  after  all  —  just  what  thou  art, 
Put  on  thy  head  a  wig  with  countless  locks, 
Raise  to  a  cubit's  height  thy  learned  socks, 
Still  thou  remainest  ever  —  what  thou  art." 

Faust,  part  i.  1451^,  Swanwick's  trans. 

Browning  is  as  negligent  of  the  Graces  as 
Goethe  is  worshipful  toward  them.  His  style 
is  as  chaotic  as  that  of  his  predecessor  is 
orderly  and  finished.  But  the  attitude  of  the 
man  himself  is  ever  prophetic  and  expectant. 
He  looks  to  see  things  come  to  pass,  and  sum- 
mons men  to  the  exercise  of  their  high  pre- 
rogative of  putting  compulsion  upon  events. 
The  very  ruggedness  of  his  method  seems  to 
reflect  the  abundance  of  the  unorganized 
material  which  he  sees  lying  in  rough  masses 
about  him,  waiting  the  constructive  genius  of 
the  architect,  bravely  seconded  as  he  would 
have  it  by  the  honest  handiwork  of  the  mason. 
Indeed,  the  relation  and  the  contrast  between 


26  THE  DYNAMIC   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

the  two  poets  are  not  unlike  those  which  a  very 
acute  critic  has  discerned  to  exist  between 
the  Italian  Renaissance  and  the  Protestant 
Reformation.  The  outlook  of  the  former  is 
toward  culture,  the  exercise  and  enjoyment 
of  balanced  and  regulated  faculty ;  that  of 
the  latter  toward  religion,  the  genesis  of  new 
beliefs  as  to  God  and  man,  and  the  impulse 
to  embody  them  in  action.1 

It  is  not  to  be  denied  that  the  theological 
situation  as  it  faced  us  at  last  century's  end 
was  primarily  suggestive  of  chaos.  The  Zeit- 
geist had  proved  to  be  no  respecter  of  great 
theological  names  or  systems ;  and  those  who 
have  rejoiced  to  see  the  wreck  of  time-hon- 
ored structures,  or  who  have  lifted  up  their 
voices  to  prophesy  the  passing  of  theology 
altogether  from  the  sphere  of  rational  human 
interest,  have  seemed  able  to  enroll  Time  and 
the  Hour  among  their  allies.  Two  very  stub- 
born facts,  however,  have  maintained  their 
ground  amid  the  confusion.  One  is  that  the 
general  subject-matter  of  theology  —  the  raw 
material  with  which  it  deals  —  appears  to  pos- 
sess permanent  interest  for  men.  They  may 
grow  weary  of  the  theological  terminology  of 

1  Fairbairn,  Christ  in  Theology,  p.  137. 


THE   ZEITGEIST  27 

their  day,  and  in  their  disgust  fancy  that  in 
throwing  it  away  they  dispose  of  the  problems 
which  it  inadequately  expresses.  Yet  in  an- 
other form  the  problems  recur.  It  is  a  far  cry 
from  Eliphaz,  Zophar,  and  Bildad  to  Profes- 
sor John  Fiske.  But  the  challenge  which  the 
existence  of  evil  issues  to  the  New  England 
evolutionist  is  just  as  compelling  as  it  ever 
was  to  the  creator  of  the  great  Idumean  sheik 
and  his  three  friends.  Between  an  Alexan- 
drian Neo-Platonist  of  the  third  century  and 
a  Bampton  lecturer  at  the  end  of  the  nine- 
teenth, great  gulfs  of  experience  would  seem 
to  be  fixed  ;  yet  the  human  soul  puts  the  same 
question  to  Mr.  Inge  that  it  asked  Plotinus.1 
The  other  fact  is  that  no  great  and  in- 
fluential principle  ever  finds  its  way  into  the 
thought  of  men  without  exciting  immediate 
interest  as  to  its  theological  implications.  If 
theological  systems  be  in  vogue,  there  is,  as 
was  suggested  in  the  Introduction,  an  anx- 
ious  canvassing  of  each  new  principle  and 
theory  to  determine  its  bearings  with  refer- 
ence to  the  accepted  modes  of  thought.  If, 
on  the  other  hand,  systems  totter,  and  perhaps 
require  more  substantiation  at  the  hands  of 

1  Cf.  Inge,  Christian  Mysticism. 


28  THE   DYNAMIC   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

faith  than  they  furnish  to  it,  hope  springs 
eternal  that  the  new  truth  may  either  revital- 
ize the  old  categories,  or  furnish  a  sufficient 
reason  for  their  abandonment  by  supplying 
better  ones. 

Probably  these  principles  have  never  been 
better  illustrated  than  in  the  changes  that 
have  been  wrought  through  the  general  accept- 
ance of  the  theory  of  development,  as  it  has 
found  scientific  expression  during  the  last  fifty 
years.  There  seemed  at  first  to  be  no  limit 
to  the  ravages  which  it  might  commit  among 
the  systems.  It  set  at  naught  the  old  notion 
of  cataclysmic  creation.  It  did  not  appear  to 
comport  well  with  the  Idea  of  Divinity  gener- 
ally held  in  Western  Christendom.  The  whole 
universe  conceived  as  an  elaborate  machine 
seemed  to  be  thrown  out  of  gear  by  the  intro- 
duction of  this  new  theory  of  it.  Law  bade 
fair  to  usurp  the  place  of  God.  Method  was 
apotheosized.  There  was  no  place  for  reve- 
lation. The  supernatural  was  bound  to  be- 
come an  outworn  term.  Miracle  was  not  to 
be  thought  of  in  an  orderly  universe.  All 
experience  would  eventually  be  expressed  in 
terms  of  the  material,  and  if  behind  the  visi- 
ble frame  of  things  some  ultimate  force  had 


THE  ZEITGEIST  29 

to  be  posited,  the  most  that  we  were  permit- 
ted to  say  of  it  was  that  it  was  unknowable, 
and  the  largest  concession  that  could  be  made 
to  the  childishness  of  those  whose  heart  and 
flesh  still  cried  out  for  a  living  God  was  to 
print  the  Unknowable  with  a  capital  initial. 
The  brain  was  fitted  to  secrete  thought  as  the 
liver  secreted  bile ;  though  if,  by  chance,  so- 
called  religious  thought  were  secreted,  it  was 
a  sort  of  by-product  not  to  be  counted  to  the 
brain's  credit.  Christianity  was  a  mere  pass- 
ing way-mark  of  human  immaturity.  The 
Church  was  engaged  in  an  immoral  calling 
while  it  countenanced  the  teaching  of  religion 
as  touching  ultimate  realities.  Society  was 
helpless  in  the  grasp  of  Evolution,  and  the 
Survival  of  the  Fittest,  like  a  nineteenth 
century  Minotaur,  contradicted  every  holiest 
instinct  of  the  human  heart  by  demanding  its 
tale  of  victims,  not  from  the  fair  and  beau- 
tiful, but  from  the  weak  and  dependent. 

It  was  some  such  prospect  as  this  that  the 
Gospel  of  Evolution  spread  before  the  eyes  of 
multitudes  of  men  when  it  was  first  preached 
by  advocates  who  had  but  a  meagre  concep- 
tion of  its  philosophical  foundations.  Men 
heard,  and  found  themselves  in  a  strait  be- 


30  THE   DYNAMIC   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

twixt  two.  The  more  intelligent  among  them 
were  quick  to  perceive  that  a  great  truth  had 
been  discovered.  They  could  not  fail  to  re- 
spond instinctively  to  its  appeal.  But  multi- 
tudes also  perceived  quite  as  instinctively  that, 
as  at  first  expounded,  it  was  likely  to  put  them 
to  permanent  intellectual  confusion.  Its  advo- 
cates seemed  to  contradict  as  much  experi- 
ence as  they  amplified  and  explained.  Hence 
it  followed  that  men  everywhere  took  sides 
with  reference  to  it,  some  blindly,  and  some 
intelligently  and  hopefully.  From  this  very 
fact  the  new  principle  proved  to  be  a  disturb- 
ing, sometimes  apparently  a  disintegrating, 
element  among  the  systems  of  thought.  Here 
it  threatened  destruction ;  there  it  inspired  a 
hope  of  reconstruction.  The  more  intimately 
the  vital  interests  of  men  were  concerned,  the 
more  profound  and  painful  was  the  agitation. 
Now  the  mutual  relations  of  natural  science 
and  theology  at  the  time  of  the  promulgation 
of  the  theory  of  development  were  of  a  sort 
to  render  each  somewhat  antipathetic  to  the 
other.  Theology  as  a  science  had  been  ham- 
pered and  confined  through  its  subservience, 
or  supposed  subservience,  to  an  institution. 
In  all  Koman  Catholic  and  in  most  Protestant 


THE  ZEITGEIST  31 

lands  it  was  under  some  authority  other  than 
that  of  a  simple  law  of  truth,  and  was  forced 
to  square  its  conclusions,  if  it  could,  not 
merely  with  the  spirit,  but  with  the  form  of 
dogma,  —  dogma  being  in  too  many  cases 
unscientific  dogma,  based  less  upon  observa- 
tion than  upon  a  process  of  deduction  from 
inadequate  premisses.  Theology  was  so  occu- 
pied with  the  Whence  and  the  Whither  and 
the  Why  of  life  that  it  was  much  too  con- 
temptuous of  the  When,  the  Where,  and  the 
How.  It  was  entirely  honest  in  its  intent  to 
go  down  deep  and  to  reach  up  high  ;  but  it 
was  careless  of  a  great  deal  of  truth  which, 
near  at  hand  and  close  to  earth,  seemed  too 
commonplace  for  intimate  relation  to  its  lofty 
purposes. 

Natural  Science  in  its  revival  dealt  eagerly 
with  just  this  truth.  It  found  a  vast  field  for 
its  energies.  Investigation  there  proved  so 
rich  and  fruitful  that  the  scope  of  science  was 
mightily  enlarged.  With  the  key  of  the  the- 
ory of  development  at  hand,  Nature's  cipher 
was  translated  at  a  surprising  rate.  Answers 
to  the  scientist's  questions  of  When,  Where, 
and  How  poured  forth  in  such  abundance,  that 
he  and  his  disciples  were  fain   to  pull  down 


32  THE  DYNAMIC   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

their  old  treasuries  and  build  greater,  assured 
that  here  were  all  the  goods  they  needed  for 
indefinite  future  sustenance.  They  were  se- 
verely condemnatory  of  the  theologian  who 
had  missed  these  things  ;  contemptuous,  if  he 
failed  to  share  their  enthusiasm  at  the  new 
meanings  which  they  now  saw  all  about  them ; 
not  a  little  restive,  too,  that  he  should  continue 
to  insist  that  other  things  still  existed,  and 
that  their  new-found  principle  might  prove  to 
be,  after  all,  proximate  rather  than  ultimate. 

To  this  period  of  open  warfare  or  armed 
neutrality  between  the  biologist  and  the  the- 
ologian a  calmer  mood  has  succeeded.  A 
suspicion  seems  to  have  been  born  in  the 
heart  of  each  that  his  neighbor's  contentions 
may  be  quite  as  likely  to  represent  the  com- 
plement as  the  contrary  of  his  own.  In 
point  of  fact,  leading  Protestant  theologians 
have  proven  to  be  far  more  complaisant  than 
the  naturalists  here.  The  wisest  of  them 
have  shown  themselves  entirely  hospitable 
to  the  theory  of  development.  They  had 
learned,  however,  by  a  more  or  less  bitter  ex- 
perience, that  every  great  principle  "  which 
is  seized  with  rapture  by  the  imagination 
and    imperfectly   apprehended    by   the    rea- 


THE  ZEITGEIST  33 

son  " l  may,  even  though  true  in  itself,  lead 
men  in  the  wrong  direction.  The  shallower 
and  less  philosophical  naturalists  have  there- 
fore sometimes  been  inclined  to  taunt  the 
theologians  with  their  change  of  front  in  face 
of  what  threatened  to  be  the  assaults  of  the 
evolutionists.  But  it  always  remains  for  the 
Protestant  to  reply  that  his  apparent  change 
of  front  in  face  of  evolutionary  advance  has 
been  in  no  sense  because  he  saw  in  it  a  new 
foe  about  to  attack  him  in  flank  ;  it  has  been 
rather  the  rearrangement  of  position  neces- 
sitated by  the  accession  of  considerable  rein- 
forcements. It  has  been  made  not  without 
some  unfortunate  confusion,  to  be  sure,  not 
without  some  suspicion  and  unwillingness 
here  and  there,  but  it  has  been  made,  for  all 
that.  Moreover,  the  true  Protestant  rejoices 
in  his  ability  to  make  it.  Such  power  of  adap- 
tation is  an  essential  attribute,  he  believes,  of 
a  really  scientific  theology.  He  is  inclined  to 
answer  the  taunt  of  the  naturalist  as  Leib- 
nitz answered  Bossuet,  when  the  latter  asked 
him  whether  he  could  find  a  way  to  hinder 
the  Protestant  Churches  from  being  eternally 
variable:   "It  suits  us,  Monseigneur,  to  be- 

1  Allen,  Continuity  of  Christian  Thought,  p.  412. 


34  THE  DYNAMIC  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

long  to  this  moving  and  eternally  variable 
Church." 

The  century  closed  before  this  confusion 
had  entirely  resolved  itself  into  order.  Yet  it 
has  left  theology  expectant.  Men  are  filled 
with  a  large  assurance  that  when  the  new 
alignment  shall  be  effected,  it  will  make  the 
defense  of  the  old  sacred  places  more  im- 
pregnable than  ever.  Of  course  one  does  not 
have  to  go  far  to  find  the  grumbler  and  the 
man  who  sighs  for  the  old  systems  and  the 
old  watchwords ;  which  is  only  to  say  that 
the  Great  Twin  Brethren,  Tradition  and  Cus- 
tom, find  as  many  worshipers  among  theo- 
logians as  among  soldiers  and  sailors.  It  may 
properly  enough  be  asked,  however,  what  defi- 
nite grounds  there  are  for  this  more  confident 
and  expectant  attitude  of  the  theologian.  I 
am  content  to  designate  four  or  five  of  the 
many  that  might  be  indicated. 

1.  As  the  apostles  of  the  Doctrine  of  De- 
velopment have  thought  themselves  through, 
have  come,  that  is,  to  see  the  real  range  and 
scope  of  their  own  hypothesis,  they  have 
tacitly  if  not  explicitly  recognized  the  theolo- 
gian's rights,  even  though  they  may  not  like 
his  name.  Whether  he  find  it  a  hard  or  easy 


THE   ZEITGEIST  35 

task  to  give  the  world  a  reason  for  the  par- 
ticular faith  that  is  in  him,  his  raison  d'etre 
is  scarcely  in  need  of  defense  to-day. 

Men  like  the  late  John  Fiske  and  G.  J. 
Romanes  have  borne  distinct  testimony  to  this 
fact.  Professor  Fiske,  as  was  intimated  in  the 
Introduction,  himself  became  a  theologian  of 
note.  Mr.  Romanes,  with  a  frankness  so  ad- 
mirable that  it  ought  never  to  be  abused  by 
any  claim  that  he  was  made  the  captive  of 
Canon  Gore's1  orthodox  spear  and  bow,  has 
set  down  in  black  and  white  the  record  of 
his  own  experience.  The  story  of  his  renun- 
ciation of  his  faith  at  the  supposed  demand  of 
biology  and  its  implications  has  become  classic. 

"  And  forasmuch  as  I  am  far  from  being 
able  to  agree  with  those  who  affirm  that  the 
twilight  doctrine  of  the  i  new  faith '  is  a  de- 
sirable substitute  for  the  waning  splendour  of 
6  the  old,'  I  am  not  ashamed  to  confess  that 
with  this  virtual  negation  of  God  the  universe 
to  me  has  lost  its  soul  of  loveliness ;  and  al- 
though from  henceforth  the  precept  to  '  work 
while  it  is  day  '  will  doubtless  but  gain  an 
intensified  force  from  the  terribly  intensified 
meaning  of  the  words  that  '  the  night  cometh 

1  Now  Bishop  of  Worcester. 


36  THE   DYNAMIC   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

when  no  man  can  work/  yet  when  at  times  I 
think,  as  at  times  I  must,  of  the  appalling 
contrast  between  the  hallowed  glory  of  that 
creed  which  once  was  mine,  and  the  lonely 
mystery  of  existence  as  now  I  find  it,  —  at 
such  times  I  shall  ever  feel  it  impossible  to 
avoid  the  sharpest  pang  of  which  my  nature 
is  susceptible.  For  whether  it  be  due  to  my 
intelligence  not  being  sufficiently  advanced  to 
meet  the  requirements  of  the  age,  or  whether 
it  be  due  to  the  memory  of  those  sacred  asso- 
ciations which  to  me  at  least  were  the  sweet- 
est that  life  has  given,  I  cannot  but  feel  that 
for  me,  and  for  others  who  think  as  I  do,  there 
is  a  dreadful  truth  in  those  words  of  Hamil- 
ton,—  Philosophy,  having  become  a  medita- 
tion, not  merely  of  death,  but  of  annihilation, 
the  precept  Know  thyself  has  become  trans- 
formed into  the  terrific  oracle  to  (Edipus :  — 

"  '  Mayest  thou  ne'er  know  the  truth  of  what  thou  art.' "  l 

These  words  must  have  been  written  as  early 
as  1876. 2  At  his  death  in  1894  the  same  writer 
left  a  further  record  to  this  effect :  — 

1  Romanes,  Thoughts  on  Religion,  Ed.  Pref.,  p.  29. 

2  The  Candid  Examination  of  Theism,  in  the  concluding 
chapter  of  which  these  words  occur,  was  published  in  1878, 


THE   ZEITGEIST  37 

"  I  take  it  then  as  unquestionably  true  that 
this  whole  negative  side  of  the  subject  proves 
a  vacuum  in  the  soul  of  man  which  nothing 
can  fill  save  faith  in  God.  Now  take  the  posi- 
tive side.  Consider  the  happiness  of  religious 
—  and  chiefly  of  the  highest  religious,  i.  e. 
Christian  —  belief.  It  is  a  matter  of  fact  that 
besides  being  most  intense,  it  is  most  endur- 
ing, growing,  and  never  staled  by  custom.  In 
short,  according  to  the  universal  testimony  of 
those  who  have  it,  it  differs  from  all  other 
happiness  not  only  in  degree  but  in  kind. 
Those  who  have  it  can  usually  testify  to  what 
they  used  to  be  without  it.  .  .  .  So  much 
for  the  individual.  But  positive  evidence  does 
not  end  here.  Look  at  the  effects  of  Christian 
belief  as  exercised  on  human  society  —  first, 
by  individual  Christians  on  the  family,  etc. ; 
and,  second,  by  the  Christian  Church  on  the 
world.  All  this  may  lead  on  to  an  argument 
from  the  adaptation  of  Christianity  to  human 
higher  needs.  All  men  must  feel  these  needs 
more  or  less  in  proportion    as    their    higher 

but  written,  the  author  says,  "  several  years  ago."  "  I  have 
Tef rained  from  publishing  it,"  he  remarks,  "lest  after  hav- 
ing done  so,  I  should  find  that  more  mature  thoughts  had 
modified  the  conclusions  which  the  author  sets  forth." 

Thoughts  on  Religion,  p.  9,  note. 


38  THE   DYNAMIC   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

natures,  moral  and  spiritual,  are  developed. 
Now  Christianity  is  the  only  religion  which  is 
adapted  to  meet  them  and,  according  to  those 
who  are  alone  able  to  testify,  it  does  so  most 
abundantly.  All  these  men,  of  every  sect, 
nationality,  etc.,  agree  in  their  account  of 
their  subjective  experience  ;  so  as  to  this  there 
can  be  no  question.  The  only  question  is  as 
to  whether  they  were  all  deceived." 

A  little  further  on  he  quotes  two  sets  of 
quatrains  with  the  following  comment :  — 

"  '  La  vie  est  vaine  : 
Un  peu  d'  amour, 
Un  peu  de  haine  — 
Et  puis  —  bon  jour  ! 

"  '  La  vie  est  breve  : 
Un  peu  d'espoir, 
Un  peu  de  reve  — 
Et  puis  —  bon  soir  ! ' 

"  The  above  is  a  terse  and  true  criticism  of 
this  life  without  hope  of  a  future  one.  Is  it 
satisfactory?  But  Christian  faith  as  a  matter 
of  fact  changes  it  entirely. 

"  '  The  night  has  a  thousand  eyes, 
And  the  day  but  one  ; 
Yet  the  light  of  a  whole  world  dies 
With  the  setting  sun. 


THE   ZEITGEIST  39 

"  *  The  mind  has  a  thousand  eyes, 
And  the  heart  but  one  ; 
Yet  the  light  of  a  whole  life  dies 
When  love  is  done.'  "  x 

Friedrich  Nietzsche — one  of  the  very  few 
really  consistent  atheists  the  last  century  knew, 
most  consistent,  perhaps,  in  the  insanity  to 
which  he  logically  followed  his  negations  — 
would  have  said  that  this  changed  attitude  of 
Romanes  was  only  the  working  out  of  the 
poison  of  Christianity  with  which  he  was 
prenatally  tainted.  But  in  point  of  fact,  as 
Newman  was  said  to  have  "  lived  over  again 
in  his  experience  the  course  of  Latin  His- 
tory," 2  so  Romanes  illustrated  in  his  brief 
but  busy  life  the  experience  of  nineteenth 
century  theology.  I  have  quoted  from  him  at 
considerable  length,  less  because  I  am  just 
now  concerned  to  substantiate  or  to  use  his 
conclusions,  than  because  he  exemplifies  so 
well  my  contention  that  the  facts  of  religion 
and  the  rational  treatment  of  them  which  is 
the  essence  of  theology  have  a  real  claim 
upon  intelligent  men. 

2.  Another  substantiation  of  the  more  ex- 
pectant and  reasonably  confident  attitude  of 

1  Romanes,  Thoughts  on  Religion,  pp.  162-3. 

2  Allen,  Continuity  of  Christian  Thought,  p.  412. 


40  THE  DYNAMIC  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

theology  during  the  last  few  years  is  found 
in  its  larger  recognition  and  adoption  of  the 
historic  method.1  Herein  it  has  half  unwit- 
tingly come  into  closer  touch  with  physical 
science,  and  their  mutual  antipathy  has  less- 
ened proportionately.  Moreover,  in  the  pur- 
suit of  its  historical  researches,  theology  has 
found  in  the  development  hypothesis  an  unex- 
pectedly clever  and  devoted  coadjutor.  The 
evolution  key  unlocks  doors  in  theology  as 
elsewhere  which  had  before  seemed  hope- 
less. 

The  principle  of  continuity  has  long  been 
recognized  as  becoming  to  Theism.  It  com- 
ports with  a  belief  in  an  omniscient,  omni- 
present, and  ever-working  God.  Without  it 
there  is  grave  danger  lest  a  man's  God  prove 
too  small  for  his  world.  The  heart  and  flesh 
of  man  do  not  cry  out  for  a  demiurge  occa- 
sionally breaking  in  upon  the  world  of  his 
creation  with  cataclysmic  interruption  of  its 
order ;  but  for  a  living  God,  able  and  willing 
to  sustain  by  inherent  vital  force  an  organ- 
ism which  He   planted   and  which  He   still 

1  Cf.  Addresses  of  Professor  Alexander  Gosman  and  Pro- 
fessor G.  P.  Fisher,  International  Congregational  Council, 
Boston,  1899,  Proceedings  of  Council. 


THE  ZEITGEIST  41 

nurtures.  As  the  principle  of  continuity 
comports  well  with  Theism  and  in  a  sense  dis- 
tinguishes it  from  mere  Deism,  so  the  Doc- 
trine of  Evolution  is  but  one  application  of 
this  principle  in  the  sphere  of  creative  method. 
It  contradicts  no  first  principle  essential  to 
theology's  existence.  It  explains  much.  It 
promises  to  explain  more. 

3.  Still  again,  theology  has  discovered  that 
some  of  the  implications  of  the  development 
hypothesis  which  its  more  dogmatic  expositors 
once  proclaimed  to  be  destructive  of  theologi- 
cal positions  have  really  substantiated  them. 
The  Gibeonites  who  were  feared  as  spoilers 
in  the  distance  become  hewers  of  wood  and 
drawers  of  water  when  we  really  enter  their 
land.  There  is  perhaps  no  better  illustration 
of  this  than  that  offered  by  the  treatment 
which  evolution  has  accorded  to  the  doctrine 
of  final  causes.  It  threatened  to  rule  Paley's 
argument  from  design,  illustrated  by  the 
watch  found  upon  a  desert  shore,  out  of 
court  altogether ;  not  so  much  because  it  was 
fundamentally  false  as  because  it  was  alto- 
gether inadequate.  In  thus  confounding  Paley 
a  certain  school  of  evolutionists  seemed  to 
think  that  all  teleology  was  forever  put  to 


42         THE  DYNAMIC  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

confusion.  It  only  remained  for  another  and 
wiser  school  to  show  that  the  old  argument 
from  design  was  meagre  rather  than  false,  and 
that  it  failed  because  it  undertook  to  express 
a  vital  process  in  mechanical  terms.  As  time 
has  passed,  a  larger  place  has  been  found  for 
teleology  than  the  old  doctrine  of  final  causes 
ever  dared  to  claim.  There  is  a  significant 
note  in  Romanes'  "  Thoughts  on  Religion  " 
to  the  effect  that  in  a  projected  book  he  must 
show  how  much  better  a  treatise  Butler  might 
have  written  had  he  known  about  evolution/ 
and  he  might  have  included  Paley  and  the 
essayists  of  the  Bridgewater  Treatises  in  the 
same  category. 

4.  Then,  finally,  there  is  the  confidence  of 
the  practical  Christianity  of  the  time.  The 
Church  at  large,  though,  as  I  shall  show  in 
a  later  chapter,  her  confessions  of  faith,  her 
polities,  and  her  practical  activities  are  all 
more  or  less  confused  and  ill-coordinated,  is 
still  vigorous  with  the  vigor  of  healthful  and 
hopeful  even  though  untrained  youth.  The 
Church  in  the  broad  sense  is  not  a  decadent 
institution,  though  she  may  sometimes  seem 
to  be  a  distracted  one.    She  is  quick  still  — 

1  Thoughts  on  Religion,  p.  182. 


THE  ZEITGEIST  43 

perhaps  quicker  than  ever  before  —  to  hear 
and  heed  the  voice  of  the  prophet. 

The  century  just  closed  has  been  charac- 
terized in  an  extraordinary  degree  by  or- 
ganization under  the  general  inspiration  and 
direction  of  the  Christian  Church.  Confining 
our  view  to  Anglo-Saxon  Protestantism,  we 
may  see  four  great  organized  movements 
which,  during  the  century,  have  enlisted  the 
gifts  and  the  services  of  millions  of  Chris- 
tians. One  of  these  is  the  Sunday-school.  Its 
inception  by  Robert  Raikes  in  Gloucester, 
England,  belongs  to  the  eighteenth  century, 
but  the  real  adaptation  of  the  institution  to 
the  purposes  of  the  Church  is  of  the  nine- 
teenth. On  the  American  continent  to-day 
there  are  nearly  150,000  of  these  schools,  with 
1,500,000  officers  and  teachers  and  about 
12,000,000  pupils. 

A  second  significant  organization  arose  in 
the  middle  of  the  century  with  the  founding 
of  the  first  Young  Men's  Christian  Associa- 
tion. This  was  followed  in  due  time  by  the 
Young  Women's  Christian  Association.  One 
or  both  of  these  associations  may  now  be 
found  in  more  than  forty  countries,  enrolling 
250,000  men  and  nearly  40,000  women. 


44  THE  DYNAMIC   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

In  1881  an  organization  known  as  the 
Society  of  Christian  Endeavor  came  into 
being.  It  seemed  to  have  peculiar  pertinence 
to  conditions  then  existent  in  most  Protestant 
churches.  Expanding  with  astonishing  rapid- 
ity, it  came  to  represent  in  the  closing  years 
of  the  century  56,000  affiliated  societies,  with 
a  membership  of  3,400,000/ 

Meanwhile  the  Church  has  felt  such  an  ac- 
cess of  missionary  zeal  as  has  not  been  known 
since  the  first  three  centuries.  The  Christian 
missionary  has  penetrated  into  all  quarters 
of  the  globe.  He  has  come  to  represent  a 
vital  world-movement.  Almost  every  branch 
of  natural  science,  as  well  as  anthropology, 
philology,  geography,  ethics,  and  comparative 
religion  is  under  obligation  to  him;  while  his 
intimate  acquaintance  with  religious  thought 
abroad  has  reacted  with  telling  power  upon 
religious  thought  at  home.  All  future  histo- 
rians must  reckon  with  him  and  his  work. 

It  is  beside  my  present  purpose  to  ask 
whether  these  manifestations  of  Christian 
vitality  have  been  wisely  inaugurated  or 
are   being    directed    to    beneficent   ends.     I 

1  C.  E.  Jefferson,  Address,  International  Congregational 
Council,  Boston,  1899,  Proceedings  of  Council,  p.  308. 


THE  ZEITGEIST  45 

am  simply  calling  attention  to  them  as  phe- 
nomena, indicative  of  vast  stores  of  energy 
gladly  subject  to  the  direction  of  religious 
impulse.  It  is  perfectly  idle  to  attempt  to 
explain  them  away  as  manifestations  of  mere 
passing  sentiment.  They  speak  of  willing 
gifts,  devoted  lives,  deliberate  intentions,  and 
often  consummately  able  leadership.  These  are 
only  examples  from  a  great  and  ever  increas- 
ing store  of  similar  organized  activities.  They 
represent  the  emphasis  which  the  Church,  fol- 
lowing Faust's  suggestion,  has  during  these 
years  been  placing  upon  the  Deed. 

The  Church  thus  vigorous  in  act  —  more 
vigorous,  perhaps,  than  in  any  other  century 
of  her  history  —  has  a  right  to  ask  the  theo- 
logian for  some  unifying  and  coordinating 
principle  for  the  satisfaction  of  her  mind  and 
the  guidance  of  her  ever  developing  vital- 
ity. That  some  such  principle  exists  she  feels 
instinctively.  There  is  too  much  Doing  all 
the  time  to  permit  a  doubt  as  to  the  existence 
of  some  Power  behind  the  Deed,  and  some 
Dynamic  which  shall  set  forth  the  order  and 
method  of  its  working.  It  is  when  the  Church 
puts  this  question  to  the  world  that  she  be- 
comes aware  of   the  extent  in  which  Doing 


46  THE  DYNAMIC   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

has  outrun  Thinking  in  the  century's  life, 
and  of  the  more  or  less  incoherent  state  of  the 
average  man's  thought  upon  the  great  and 
closely  related  subjects  of  theology,  religion, 
and  social  life. 

I  shall  attempt  in  the  three  succeeding 
chapters  to  sketch  the  present  state  of  popu- 
lar thought  upon  these  themes,  with  a  view  to 
discover,  if  possible,  some  common  principle 
which,  even  though  generally  unrecognized, 
may  still  aid  us  in  our  search  for  the  Dynamic 
of  Christianity. 


Ill 


THE   PRESENT  STATE  OF  POPULAR  THEO- 
LOGICAL THOUGHT 

"But,  Sir/'  said  Boswell  to  Johnson  in  a 
famous  endeavor  to  defend  the  Presbyterians 
against  that  prejudiced  worthy,  "their  doc- 
trine is  the  same  with  that  of  the  Church  of 
England.  Their  Confession  of  Faith  and  the 
Thirty-Nine  Articles  contain  the  same  points, 
even  the  doctrine  of  Predestination."  "  Why, 
yes,  Sir,"  answered  Johnson,  "  predestination 
was  a  part  of  the  clamour  of  the  times,  so  it 
is  mentioned  in  our  articles,  but  with  as  little 
positiveness  as  could  be."  1 

Johnson's  prejudice,  portentous  as  its  pro- 
portions often  were,  was  never  able  altogether 
to  vanquish  his  good  sense  and  keenness  of  vi- 
sion ;  and  in  that  phrase  "  the  clamour  of  the 
times,"  he  hit  upon  one  secret  of  the  stranger 
forms  which  theological  speech  has  sometimes 
used.    He  was  only  saying  in  his  ponderous 

1  BoswelVs  Johnson,  Hill's  ed.,  ii.  119. 


48  THE  DYNAMIC   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

but  still  trenchant  way,  that  there  has  been 
a  fashion  in  theology  as  in  almost  every  other 
department  of  science  and  philosophy. 

The  general  appeal  to  the  Doctrine  of  Evo- 
lution and  the  insistence  upon  its  recognition 
in  every  discussion  of  the  day  is  due  in  some 
measure  to  the  clamor  of  our  time.  This  is 
in  no  sense  to  disparage  it.  It  is  only  to  say 
that  it  is  to  the  fore  to-day  as  the  principle  of 
the  sovereignty  of  God  was  to  the  fore  in  the 
heyday  of  Calvinism,  and  that  it  is  liable  to  a 
similarly  exaggerated  application.  For  better, 
for  worse,  all  our  theological  thinking  has  to 
reckon  with  it.  Just  at  present,  however,  we 
stand  at  a  point  where  its  substantiation  of  the 
main  positions  of  theology  is  much  more  ap- 
parent to  the  man  of  the  schools  than  to  the 
man  of  the  street.  The  former  has  generally 
recognized  the  need  of  a  reorganization  of 
system  and  is  hopefully  expectant.  The  latter, 
slow  to  give  up  the  old  to  which  he  has  be- 
come habituated,  is  yet  doubtful  whether  he 
may  not  be  forced  to  give  it  up.  As  a  system, 
he  has  grown  accustomed  to  uphold  or  to  an- 
tagonize it,  and  were  it  to  crumble  he  would 
miss  it  equally  in  either  case ;  for  it  is  a  tru- 
ism of  experience  that  one  misses  an  old  "and 


POPULAR  THEOLOGICAL  THOUGHT         49 

cherished   antagonist  little  less  than  an    old 
and  cherished  friend.    In  some    cases  where 
purely  religious  questions  give  him  little  trou- 
ble, the  prospect  of  an  overturn  of  his  theo- 
logy causes  him  keen  distress.    The  shallow 
observer  advises  him  to  forswear  all  theolo- 
gical speculation  and  rule  theology  out  of  the 
circle  of  his  thought,  sufficing  his  soul  with 
simple  religious  observance.    But  it  will  not 
do.    One  man  may  heed  the  advice,  but  his 
fellow  instinctively  feels  its  false  quality,  and 
is  dissatisfied  to  leave  the  ranges  of  his  soul 
unexplored  and  unmapped,  while  science   is 
reducing    to    order    his  knowledge   of   other 
spheres  of  activity.    He  instinctively  believes 
this  exploration  to  be  a  legitimate  function  of 
the  human  reason.    His  experience  of  other 
lines   of  investigation   leads   him  further  to 
believe  that,  for  exploration  here,  he  needs 
some   guiding    principle  which   shall    render 
experience  coherent,  and  to  the  test  of  which 
he  may  subject  his  hypotheses.   It  is  just  this 
principle,  however,  that  is   notably  lacking ; 
and  the  lack  seems  all  the  more  pitiable  inas- 
much as  recent  monistic  tendencies  in  science 
give  renewed  force  to  the  demand  that  such 
high  matters  as  sin,  righteousness,  and  char- 


50  THE  DYNAMIC  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

acter  be  treated,  not  as  mere  names  or  con- 
cepts, but  as  realities.1 

In  illustration  of  this  lack  of  system  in  the 
theological  thinking  of  Christian  people  to- 
day, one  need  only  interrogate  the  men  or 
women  of  somewhat  more  than  average  intel- 
ligence who  comprise  the  bulk  of  the  mem- 
bership of  our  Christian  churches.  In  talk- 
ing with  a  man  of  this  company,  intelligent 
and  well  acquainted  as  he  generally  is  with 
the  world,  —  all  the  better  and  more  deeply 
acquainted  often  because  his  acquaintance  is 
mellowed  and  sweetened  by  his  benevolence, 
—  one  is  still  struck  by  the  fact  that  he  is  a 
dualist,  and  somewhat  restless  and  puzzled  by 
reason  of  his  dualism.  Ormuzd  and  Ahriman 
are  ever  with  him,  bidding  for  his  suffrage  in 
life's  intellectual  as  well  as  moral  contests. 
While  he  believes  that  God  is  in  His  World, 
still  there  is  antinomy  between  natural  and 
supernatural.  The  world  activities  are  not 
merely  distinct  from,  they  are  opposed  to,  the 
divine  activities. 

To  take  a  concrete  illustration,  the  so- 
called  law  of  gravitation  is,  in  his  thought  of 
it,  quite  divorced  from  the  divine  working, 

1  Cf.  art.  "  Theology,"  in  Johnson's  Universal  Encyclopedia. 


POPULAR  THEOLOGICAL  THOUGHT        51 

except  as  God  may  use  it  as  He  might  use  any 
other  device  or  instrument.  The  law  itself 
may  very  likely  seem  to  him  to  be  a  concrete 
entity,  to  which  he  ascribes  certain  personal 
attributes,  making  it  in  reality  a  kind  of  de- 
miurge. He  continually  speaks  as  though  the 
law  accounted  for  events,  and  as  though  hav- 
ing been  referred  to  the  law,  there  was  no 
room,  or  at  least  no  need,  for  any  reference 
to  God.  As  a  believer  he  is  bound  to  hold  to 
God's  supremacy  over  this  and  all  laws,  but 
the  supremacy  is  that  of  a  foreign  dynasty 
over  a  conquered  realm ;  and  it  is  manifest 
most  clearly  in  what  are  supposed  to  be  its 
interferences  with  the  law's  normal  working. 
Between  Nature  and  the  Supernatural  there 
seems  to  be  a  great  gulf  fixed.  Everything 
that  comes  into  the  category  of  ordinary  expe- 
rience he  assigns  to  the  realm  of  the  natural; 
the  supernatural  lies,  he  would  very  likely 
say,  beyond  his  personal  experience.  He 
believes  in  it,  but  bases  his  belief  on  hearsay 
evidence.  His  heart  cries  out  for  the  super- 
natural as  somewhere  existent  and  somehow 
manifest,  but  it  is  existent  in  other  times  and 
manifest  to  other  men ;  not  to  him  while 
in  his  present  pilgrimage.    He   is   prone  to 


52         THE  DYNAMIC   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

think  of  miracle  as  a  breach  in  the  natural 
order;  and  the  thought  of  a  breach  in  the 
natural  order  gives  such  a  wrench  to  what 
he  supposes  to  be  his  scientific  habit  of  mind 
as  to  require  all  his  faith  to  substantiate  it. 
Indeed,  if  by  common  consent  all  belief  in 
miracles  should  fall  into  abeyance,  he  would 
think  his  faith  relieved  of  an  incubus. 

This  antinomy  between  his  conception  of 
natural  and  supernatural  extends  itself  to  the 
realms  of  the  rational  and  spiritual.  If  he 
could  find  standing-room  beside  Whichcote 
when  he  wrote  to  Tuckney,  "  Sir,  I  oppose  not 
rational  to  spiritual,  for  spiritual  is  most  ra- 
tional," 1  it  would  be  to  look  out  upon  a  world 
of  vastly  broader  horizon,  and  one  far  better 
fitted  than  his  present  world  for  the  habita- 
tion of  reasonable  beings ;  but  in  many  cases 
such  a  possibility  never  presents  itself  to  him. 

In  his  thought  upon  the  Bible,  the  Chris- 
tian man  of  this  type  often  regards  the  divine 
and  human  agencies  in  its  composition  as 
mutually  exclusive,  and,  feeling  instinctively 
the  presence  of  the  divine,  his  doctrine  of 
Sacred  Scripture  is  extremely  inhospitable  to 
the  human ;  while  his  neighbor,  who  is  not 

1  Quoted  by  Inge,  Christian  Mysticism,  p.  20. 


POPULAR  THEOLOGICAL  THOUGHT        53 

quite  willing  to  be  counted  a  Christian,  recog- 
nizing as  instinctively  the  human  element, 
and  being  possessed  of  the  same  dualistic 
philosophy,  is  equally  inhospitable  to  the  di- 
vine. Both  very  likely  agree  in  their  conten- 
tion that  except  the  Bible  be  infallible,  it 
cannot  be  inspired ;  if  there  prove  to  be  a 
considerable  legendary  element  in  Genesis,  it 
is  therefore  by  so  much  unfitted  for  its  sup- 
posed religious  office ;  and  except  the  unity  of 
the  Isaiah  prophecies  and  the  exact  historicity 
of  Jonah  be  accepted,  then  Isaiah  and  Jonah 
can  have  no  legitimate  place  in  the  canon. 

The  same  evil  principle  is  always  plaguing 
men  as  they  attempt  to  frame  for  themselves 
a  doctrine  of  God.  Neither  Unitarian  nor 
Trinitarian  has  altogether  escaped  it.  The 
former  is  very  likely  to  find  himself  a  Deist 
with  a  God  who  is  a  mere  deus  ex  machina 
—  a  device  to  account  for  things  ;  or  else  a 
Pantheist,  whose  God  is  a  pervasive  and  imper- 
sonal Presence  not  to  be  very  carefully  distin- 
guished from  the  World,  or,  if  distinguished, 
only  as  the  personification  of  rather  mawkish 
sentiment.  In  neither  case  is  there  likely  to 
be  much  spiritual  comfort  or  much  incitement 
to  worship  in  such  belief.   The  Trinitarian,  on 


54  THE  DYNAMIC  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

the  other  hand,  especially  if  he  pride  himself 
upon  his  orthodoxy,  is  in  great  danger  of  re- 
garding his  Trinitarian  formula  as  an  attempt 
at  definition  —  a  course  which  lands  him  al- 
most inevitably  in  Tritheism.  Every  reference 
to  Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Ghost  which  he 
makes  seems  like  an  attempt  to  emphasize  his 
belief  in  their  separateness ;  and  it  is  with 
all  the  pride  of  "  credo  quia  impossible " 
that  he  admits  how  oppugnant  his  faith  is  to 
reason.  It  is  only  fair  to  state,  however,  that 
he  represents  but  a  small  fraction  of  the  great 
body  of  Trinitarians.  It  is  what  Bushnell 
used  to  call  the  "mere  logicker,"  the  man, 
that  is,  who  would  confine  his  definition  of 
the  human  reason  to  the  faculty  of  ratio- 
cination, who  in  his  fear  of  the  Scylla  of 
Unitarianism  throws  himself  a  willing  victim 
into  the  Charybdis  of  Tritheism. 

The  instinct  of  the  plain  man  whose  faith 
grows  up  out  of  his  experience,  as  that  expe- 
rience in  turn  springs  out  of  the  experience 
of  the  Christian  Church,  keeps  him  from  any 
attempt  to  use  the  Trinitarian  formula  as  a 
definition.  It  appeals  to  him  as  an  attempt 
to  express  the  Christian  world's  experience 
of  the  infinite  wealth  of  Being  in  God.    If 


POPULAR  THEOLOGICAL  THOUGHT         55 

pressed  to  define  his  position  further,  he  will 
very  likely  say  that  his  theory  of  it  can  be 
stated  only  in  terms  of  the  doctrine  of  a 
modal  Trinity ;  that  is,  he  sees  God  as  mani- 
festing Himself  to  men  in  three  aspects  or 
modes  of  revelation. 

He  may  be  told  that  this  Sabellianism  of 
his  is  shallow  and  meagre ;  and  the  authority 
of  great  names  from  the  third  century  to 
the  nineteenth  can  be  adduced  to  give  weight 
to  the  charge.  If  the  Trinitarian  thus  ac- 
cused be  a  humble  man,  he  will  very  likely 
plead  guilty  and  admit  that  he  has  no  thought 
of  compassing  all  the  truth  in  his  partial 
attempt  to  give  a  reason  for  his  faith ;  but 
rather  of  indicating  the  direction  in  which  the 
larger  truth  lies  as  it  is  divined  by  his  vision 
of  the  lesser  truth  revealed.  Yet  he  will  be 
an  exceptionally  thoughtful  and  gracious  man 
if  he  take  this  position.  He  is  far  more  likely 
to  find  himself  puzzled  and  distraught  by 
the  seeming  antinomy  between  the  wealth  of 
spiritual  experience  that  has  always  accom- 
panied the  acceptance  of  the  truth  which  the 
Trinitarian  formula  struggles  to  express,  and 
the  difficulty  of  the  formula  itself.  He  feels 
the  need  of  some  underlying  interpretative 


56  THE   DYNAMIC   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

principle  which  current  theology  quite  fails  to 
supply. 

This  need  is  perhaps  nowhere  more  defi- 
nitely emphasized  than  when  the  man  of 
whom  we  have  been  speaking  attempts  to 
formulate  his  doctrine  of  the  Kingdom  of  God. 
He  sees  before  him  the  Christian  Church  as 
a  visible  institution ;  or,  as  he  may  think 
himself  forced  to  admit,  he  sees  a  multitude 
of  churches  bearing  the  Christian  name,  and 
almost  all  presenting  many  of  the  notes  of 
a  true  Church.  Yet  the  note  of  catholicity 
seems  wanting  —  most  sadly  wanting,  he 
sometimes  thinks,  in  those  very  bodies  where 
its  possession  is  most  stoutly  affirmed.  But 
(for  we  suppose  him  to  be  a  man  of  generous 
temper)  he  may  still  discern  some  adumbra- 
tion of  the  City  of  God  in  the  omnium  gath- 
erum of  all  these  sects.  The  mass  seems  so 
heterogeneous  as  to  defy  the  skill  and  pa- 
tience even  of  the  Divine  Head  of  the  Church 
Himself.  Yet  on  a  closer  view  it  appears 
rather  to  be  unorganized  than  disorganized. 
Many  of  the  distinctions  which  separate  the 
churches  represent  not  only  no  fundamental 
differences,  but  no  appreciable  differences. 
Though  now  and  then  these  distinctions  are 


POPULAR  THEOLOGICAL  THOUGHT        57 

all  the  more  pitiable  and  lamentable  on  that 
account,  as  in   the   case   of    two    struggling 
Presbyterian  sects  in  a  small  New  England 
village,    which    were    divided,    according    to 
waggish   report,  by  the   fact  that   one   sang 
the  Psalms  of    David,  while  the  other  used 
David's   Psalms,  yet  it   remains  to   be    said 
that  in  a  great  number  of    cases  these  dis- 
tinctions are  simply  the  notes  of  natural  dis- 
tribution  rather  than  of  unnatural  division. 
It  is  not  to  be  expected  and  probably  not  to 
be  desired  that  uniformity  of  Christian  pur- 
pose should  result  in  conformity  of  Christian 
method.     Not    all    Christian    worshipers    are 
likely  to  agree  upon  a  universal  liturgy,  from 
the  very  fact  that  not  all  men  are  so  consti- 
tuted as  to  be  genuinely  edified  by  the  same 
modes  of  worship.    The  appeal  of  the  spiritual 
is  made  to  one  man  most  naturally  and  effec- 
tively through  the  avenue  of  his  intellectual 
processes;  to  his  neighbor  through  his  emo- 
tional nature.    While  each  should  yield  mere 
preference  in  such  a  matter  to  the  demands 
of  the  common  good,  he  is  under  no  obliga- 
tion to  incur  permanent  and  utter  sacrifice  of 
this  sort  unless  the  common  good  demands  it 
very  clearly.    Under  normal  conditions,  these 


58  THE  DYNAMIC   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

two  men  may  well  work  and  worship  in  sepa- 
rate organizations,  distinct  rather  than  dif- 
ferent, cooperating  rather  than  conforming, 
members  of  one  larger  body  rather  than  of 
rival  bodies ;  but  it  is  evident  that  if  this  is 
to  be,  it  must  come  about  through  some  com- 
mon power  dwelling  in  and  animating  both, 
and  directing  them  as  diverse  agents  in  the 
performance  of  wisely  distributed  parts  of  one 
work.  It  is  this  Dynamic  of  Christian  union 
and  common  endeavor  that  seems  wanting  to 
the  vision  of  the  average  Christian  man.  He 
believes  in  it  as  existent,  but  as  at  present  un- 
discerned  or  at  least  unrecognized.  He  looks 
to  see  it  one  day  supply  to  the  churches  the 
notes  of  the  Church. 

The  same  problem  in  a  somewhat  subtler 
aspect  confronts  him  when  he  pushes  his  in- 
quiry into  the  relations  of  the  Church  and  the 
world.  Christ  warned  His  disciples  against 
worldliness  in  a  way  that  clearly  indicated  His 
prophetic  vision  of  a  long-enduring  antago- 
nism between  His  Kingdom  and  the  realm 
of  the  prince  of  this  world.  It  has  been  a 
habit  of  religious  teachers  in  all  generations 
to  assign  to  the  latter  realm  everything  that 
did  not  bear  the  direct  impress  of  the  Cross. 


POPULAR  THEOLOGICAL  THOUGHT        59 

The  dogma  of  total  depravity  gained  such 
sway  over  the  theologic  mind  at  one  stage  of 
its  development,  that  here  again  the  clamor  of 
the  times  thrust  it  into  the  XXXIX.  Arti- 
cles, where  the  quam  longissime  of  Article 
IX.  still  abides  to  confute  such  as  deny  the 
Calvinistic  element  in  that  famous  instru- 
ment. The  theory  that  the  earth  is  the  Devil's 
and  the  fullness  thereof  has  been  tacitly 
accepted  as  a  corollary  of  the  proposition  of 
total  depravity.  Now  the  doctrine  of  total 
depravity  simply  overstates  a  great  truth. 
The  pity  is  that  good  men  should  have  given 
such  emphasis  to  the  overstatement  as  to 
invalidate  the  statement  in  a  multitude  of 
puzzled  minds.  The  average  man  cannot  re- 
concile himself  to  the  belief  that  the  material 
realm  of  nature  in  any  real  sense  shared  in 
man's  fall ;  or  that  it  is  participant  with  him 
in  God's  displeasure  at  sin.  Nor  can  he  see 
how  a  generous  deed  can  fail  to  meet  God's 
approval,  even  in  the  case  of  a  man  who 
has  not  consciously  and  definitely  heeded 
Christ's  call  into  discipleship.  His  whole  soul 
revolts  at  the  old  blasphemy  which  made  even 
the  honest  prayers  of  the  "  unregenerate  "  to 
be  sin  unto  them. 


60  THE   DYNAMIC   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

Yet  all  Christian  experience  goes  to  show 
that  regeneration  is  a  real  episode  in  human 
life  —  a  fundamental  episode  in  Christian 
life,  indeed.  It  is  as  unscientific  to  deny  it 
or  to  treat  it  with  indifference  as  it  would  be 
to  deny  or  condemn  the  phenomena  of  physi- 
cal generation.  But  does  it  not  discount  the 
reality  of  regeneration  as  a  definite  and  con- 
scious experience,  to  treat  the  "  mere  moral- 
ities "  of  a  self-respecting  and  respectable 
man  as  though  they  found  acceptable  place 
in  God's  thought  about  him  ?  Are  we  not 
in  danger  of  confounding  fundamental  dis- 
tinctions when  we  speak  of  the  goodness  of 
the  man  who  has  had  no  experience  which 
he  recognizes  as  conversion  ?  Do  we  not  go 
further  along  the  same  downward  road  when 
we  permit  amusements  which  are  not  only 
capable  of  abuse,  but  are  notoriously  abused  ? 
Even  granting  that  a  right  use  of  them  may 
conceivably  be  not  only  innocent  but  advan- 
tageous, is  not  the  safer  way  to  consign  them 
to  the  category  of  the  world's  employments, 
and  so  to  the  ban  of  God's  displeasure? 
Thus,  many  good  people  of  honest  and  un- 
selfish conviction  have  held  and  still  hold ;  and 
the  "world,"  while  vehemently  opposing  their 


POPULAR  THEOLOGICAL  THOUGHT        61 

contention,  has  been  uneasily  conscious  that 
there  were  elements  of  truth  in  it.  Both  the 
Christian  and  the  worldling,  however,  have 
felt  at  times  a  certain  tendency  to  self-contra- 
diction in  these  theories  of  the  spiritual  life. 
The  Christian  has  been  troubled  because  his 
notion  of  the  Kingdom  of  God  did  not  prove 
more  hospitable  to  some  persons,  acts,  and 
principles  of  life  which,  while  not  confessedly 
Christian,  still  seemed  to  belong  to  the  Chris- 
tian order  of  things.  The  worldling  has  been 
dissatisfied  because  all  his  exceptions  to  the 
meagreness  and  inadequacy  of  the  Christian 
view  of  life,  though  some  of  these  exceptions 
seem  very  well  taken,  prove  utterly  unable 
to  overthrow  the  worth  of  the  Christian  prin- 
ciple, or  to  gainsay  its  persistent  and  authori- 
tative demand  upon  him  for  a  yielding  of  his 
personal  allegiance  to  it. 

The  wonder  will  creep  in  whether  there  be 
not  some  power  less  exclusive  in  its  choice  of 
agencies,  less  mechanical  in  its  methods  of 
working,  more  pervasive  in  its  influence  and 
vastly  more  far-reaching  in  its  results,  than 
the  Church  has  supposed  the  personal  influ- 
ence of  Jesus  Christ  to  be.  The  Christian  is 
sometimes  forced  to  ask  himself  whether  the 


62  THE  DYNAMIC   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

whole  Gospel  has  yet  been  proclaimed  or  not ; 
and  whether  there  be  not  a  Divine  Dynamic 
at  work  outside  the  hearts  of  men  who  have 
definitely  accepted  Christ,  and  beyond  the 
pale  of  the  visible  Church,  which  we  must 
recognize  and  worship  before  we  attain  to  our 
real  heritage  of  revelation. 

Before  closing  this  chapter,  some  reference 
should  be  made  to  the  testimony  which  recent 
fiction  and  poetry  bear  to  the  place  that 
theological  topics  hold  in  modern  thought, 
and  to  the  general  incoherence  of  that  thought 
itself.  Whether  a  theological  novel  can  per 
se  be  a  good  novel  or  not,  it  is  beside  my 
present  purpose  to  discuss.  Mrs.  Humphry 
Ward  has  shown  us  that  it  may  be  an  inter- 
esting, almost  a  fascinating  novel,  even 
though,  as  in  "  Robert  Elsmere,"  the  form 
of  fiction  be  made  to  cover  a  considerable 
number  of  controversial  sins.  For  in  the 
Squire's  library,  access  to  which  led  ulti- 
mately to  the  overthrow  of  Robert  Elsmere's 
faith,  certain  theological  treatises  were  sup- 
posed to  exist  whose  claims  were  so  incontro- 
vertible that  this  not  very  profound  scholar 
found  his  own  positions  no  longer  tenable. 
It  is  not  for  the  present  writer  to  contend 


POPULAR  THEOLOGICAL  THOUGHT        63 

that  such  treatises  may  not  find  justifiable 
existence  upon  the  book-shelves  of  Mrs. 
Ward's  creative  imagination  ;  but  he  would 
fain  inquire  after  a  clearer  glimpse  of  their 
contents  before  believing  that  a  man  of  some- 
what tougher  intellectual  fibre  than  the  late 
Mr.  Elsmere  could  not  have  maintained  his 
ground  against  them.  Indeed,  a  fairly  good 
case  could  be  made  out  to  show  that  in  theo- 
logical discussion  such  a  use  of  fiction  comes 
at  times  pretty  close  to  what  Newman  called 
a  "  poisoning  of  the  wells  "  in  controversy  ; 
that  is,  the  preferring  such  a  charge  against 
an  opponent  as  the  nature  of  the  case  pre- 
vents him  from  bringing  to  the  test  of  evi- 
dence. Be  that  as  it  may,  however,  the  vol- 
ume in  question  stands  as  a  type  of  a  vast 
number  of  works  of  fiction  setting  forth  one 
phase  or  another  of  some  question  that  in  its 
implications,  at  least,  is  theological. 

No  one  can  rise  from  the  reading  of  such 
a  powerful  and  gloomy  book  as  the  late  Vic- 
tor Rydberg's  "Last  Athenian"  without  a 
new  sense  of  the  force  of  St.  Paul's  words, 
"  having  no  hope  and  without  God  in  the 
world."  Thomas  Hardy  has  almost  ceased  to 
be  a  novelist,  so  completely  has  he  given  him- 


64         THE  DYNAMIC  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

self  in  his  later  and  more  painful  books  to 
the  preacher's  office.  The  closing  paragraphs 
of  "  Tess  of  the  D'Urbervilles  "  and  "  Jude 
the  Obscure"  might  properly  enough  have 
found  place  in  the  sermon  which  James 
Thomson  put  into  the  mouth  of  the  High 
Priest  of  Melancholia,  preaching  in  the  cathe- 
dral of  "  The  City  of  Dreadful  Night." 

"  I  find  no  hint  throughout  the  universe 
Of  good  or  ill,  of  blessings  or  of  curse  ; 

I  find  alone  Necessity  supreme  ; 
With  infinite  mystery,  abysmal,  dark, 
Unlighted  ever  by  the  faintest  spark 

For  us,  the  flitting  shadows  of  a  dream." 

One  cannot  but  wonder  why  a  maker  of 
men  compact  of  bone  and  sinew,  like  the 
Mayor  of  Casterbridge,  should  be  content  to 
throw  away  his  work,  and  turn  to  the  fabri- 
cation of  such  flabby  creatures  as  poor  Jude. 
There  was  something  not  unworthy  of  Greek 
tragedy  in  the  way  in  which  Mr.  Hardy's 
earlier  and  more  masterful  heroes  were  finally 
overmatched  by  Fate.  But  the  later  ones 
offer  no  real  resistance  to  Fate  because  they 
are  creatures  of  such  loose  fibre  that  Passion 
drives  them  whithersoever  it  will ;  and  the 
man  who  is  already  the  sport  of  Passion  is 
scarce  worthy  to  be   counted  an   antagonist 


POPULAR  THEOLOGICAL  THOUGHT        65 

by  Fate.     Mr.  Hardy's  God  (if  he  have  any) 
would  appear  to  be  one  who,  sitting  in  the 
heavens,  doth  laugh  and  have  men  in  deri- 
sion.    In  his  later  novels  his  foregone    and 
profoundly    unsatisfactory    conclusion   seems 
to  be,  "  There  is  a  tide  in  the  affairs  of  men 
which,  taken  any  way  you  please,  is  bad." 
From  Mr.  Eden  Philpotts,  upon  whose  stur- 
dier shoulders  Mr.  Hardy's  mantle  seems  like 
to  fall,  the  problem  of  life  in  its  ethical  and 
spiritual  phases  obtains  a    much   saner   and 
more  reasonable  statement.    Perhaps  the  ap- 
parent   contradiction   between   the   theology 
of  mere  sentiment,  so  prevalent  to-day,  and 
the  theology  of  mere  logic,  so  prevalent  day 
before  yesterday,  has   never  been  put  more 
trenchantly  than  old  Uncle  Chirgwin  put  it 
to  Joan  after  her  betrayal  by  her  artist-lover. 
"  'T  is  like  this  :  your  man  did  take  plain 
Nature  for    God,  an'  he  did  talk  fulishness 
'bout  finding  Him  in  the  scent  o'  flowers,  the 
hum  o'  bees,  an'  sich  like.    Mayhap  Nature  's 
a  gude  working  God  for  a  selfish  man,  but  he 
edn'  wan  for  a  maid,  as  you  knows  by  now. 
Then  your  faither  —  his  God  do  sit  everlast- 
ingly alongside  hell-mouth  an'  laugh  an'  girn 
to  see  all  the  world  a  walkin'  in  same  as  the 


66  THE  DYNAMIC  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

beasts  walked  in  the  Ark.  Theer  's  another 
picksher  of  a  God  for  'e ;  but  mark  this,  gal, 
they  be  lying  prophets — lying  prophets  both ! 
You  've  tried  the  wan  and  found  it  left  your 
heart  hollow  like,  and  you  Ve  tried  t'  other 
an  found  that  left  it  no  better  filled ;  now 
try  Christ,  will  'e?  Just  try.  Doan't  keep 
Him  as  is  alius  busy,  a  waitin'  your  whims 
no  more.  Try  Christ,  Joan  dearie,  an'  you  '11 
feel  what  you  've  never  felt  yet.  I  know,  as 
put  my  'and  in  His  when  't  was  as  young  as 
yourn.  An'  He  holds  it  yet  now  't  is  shriveled 
an'  crooked  wi'  rheumatics.  He  holds  it.  Iss, 
He  do."1 

It  is  a  picturesque  setting  forth  of  the  in- 
expugnable hope  of  the  human  heart  of  a 
time  when  mercy  and  truth  shall  meet  to- 
gether ;  when  righteousness  and  peace  shall 
kiss  each  other.  It  is  at  the  same  time  an 
indictment  of  the  partial  nature  of  every 
theology  which  emphasizes  mercy  as  though 
it  stood  in  no  vital  relation  to  truth ;  or 
righteousness  as  though  it  could  be  righteous 
and  not  issue  in  peace.  A  very  good  case 
might  thus  be  made  out  for  the  permanence 
of  theology's   interest  for  men,  from  an  ex- 

1  Lying  Prophets,  bk.  ii.  c.  xi. 


POPULAR  THEOLOGICAL  THOUGHT        67 

animation  of  the  novels  of  the  last  five  and 
twenty  years.  Should  the  inquiry  be  pro- 
secuted into  the  realm  of  poetry,  the  argu- 
ment would  become  a  fortiori.  Nowhere  is 
the  dictum  of  Horace  Bushnell,  "  low  grades 
of  being  want  low  objects  ;  but  the  want  of 
man  is  God,"  better  illustrated.  While  at 
the  same  time  abundant  proof  is  given  of 
the  lack  of  coherence  with  which  the  want  is 
expressed. 

Tennyson's  somewhat  hackneyed  and  not 
very  satisfying  "infant  crying  in  the  night 
.  .  .  and  with  no  language  but  a  cry,"  still  wails 
on  in  many  different  keys,  but  with  no  least 
diminution  of  breath.  It  was  almost  funny  to 
hear  so  grave  and  respectable  an  historian  as 
the  late  Mr.  Lecky  sighing  in  rather  labored 
verse,  — 

"  How  hard  to  die,  how  blessed  to  be  dead," 

especially  in  view  of  the  fact  that  he  gave  us 
no  least  reason  to  suppose  that  it  is  blessed  to 
be  dead.  Mr.  Swinburne  has  got  beyond  all 
this,  and  proclaims 

"  We  have   drunken  of  Lethe  at  last,  we  have  eaten  of 
Lotus  ; 
What  hurts  it  us  here  that  sorrows  are  born  and  die  ? 


68  THE  DYNAMIC   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

We  have  said  to  the  dream  that  caressed  and  the  dread 
that  smote  us, 
Good-night  and  good-bye." 

Yet  it  does  hurt,  in  spite  of  Mr.  Swin- 
burne's eloquent  disclaimer,  as  witness  Mr. 
G.  A.  Greene  :  — 

"  They  have  taken  away  my  Lord  ; 

They  have  shattered  the  one  great  Hope, 

They  have  left  us  alone  to  cope 
With  our  terrible  selves  : 
The  Strength  of  immortal  love  ; 

The  Comfort  of  millions  that  weep  ; 

Prayer  and  the  Cross  we  adored  — 
All  is  lost  !  there  is  no  one  above  ; 

We  are  left  like  the  beasts  that  creep  — 

They  have  taken  away  my  Lord." 

Mr.  Austin  Dobson's  "  Prayer  of  the 
Swine  to  Circe  "  illustrates  —  all  the  better, 
perhaps,  because  he  does  not  proclaim  his 
graceful  verse  to  be  an  illustration  —  what 
Dr.  van  Dyke  has  termed  the  "  cureless  mel- 
ancholy of  disillusion." 

"  If  swine  we  be  —  if  we  indeed  be  swine, 

Daughter  of  Persd,  make  us  swine  indeed, 
Well  pleased  on  litter-straw  to  lie  supine, 

Well  pleased  on  mast  and  acorn-shales  to  feed, 
Stirred  by  all  instincts  of  the  bestial  breed  ; 

But  O  Unmerciful !  O  Pitiless  ! 
Leave  us  not  thus  with  sick  men's  hearts  to  bleed  !  — 

To  waste  long  days  in  yearning,  dumb  distress 
And  memory  of  things  gone,  and  utter  hopelessness." 


POPULAR  THEOLOGICAL  THOUGHT        69 

It  is  this  prayer  which  Mr.  Henley  set  him- 
self to  answer  in  his  perverse  Rondeau  be- 
ginning, — 

M  Let  us  be  drunk,  and  for  a  while  forget, 
Forget,  and  ceasing  even  from  regret, 
Live  without  reason  and  in  spite  of  rhyme." 

But  it  will  not  do.  The  apparently  diverse 
testimony  of  the  poets  of  the  major  and  the 
minor  key  alike  tends  toward  one  conclusion. 
They  echo  the  unforgettable  words  of  St.  Au- 
gustine, "  Thou  hast  made  us  for  Thyself,  and 
our  hearts  are  restless  till  they  rest  in  Thee." 
In  the  wilderness  of  modern  verse  which  im- 
plies this  we  come  now  and  then  upon  an 
almost  startlingly  explicit  statement  of  it ;  as, 
for  instance,  in  Francis  Thompson's  lines  :  — 

"  I  fled  Him  down  the  nights  and  down  the  days  ; 
I  fled  Him  down  the  arches  of  the  years  ; 
I  fled  Him  down  the  labyrinthine  ways 

Of  my  own  mind  ;  and  in  the  midst  of  tears 
I  hid  from  Him,  and  under  running  laughter. 
Up  vistaed  hopes  I  sped  ; 
And  shot  precipitated 
Adown  Titanic  glooms  of  chasmed  fears, 
From  those  strong  feet  that  followed,  followed  after, 
But  with  unhurrying  chase, 
And  unperturbed  pace, 
Deliberate  speed,  majestic  instancy, 

They  beat  —  and  a  Voice  beat 
More  instant  than  the  Feet  — 
*  All  things  betray  thee,  who  betrayest  Me.'  " 


70         THE  DYNAMIC   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

In  somewhat  more  conventional  terms  one 
of  the  most  eminent  disciples  of  Darwin  con- 
cludes a  sonnet  written  when  he  saw  no  hope 
that  any  true  and  genuine  faith  would  ever 
come  back  to  him  :  — 

"  I  ask  not  for  thy  Love;  nor  e'en  so  much 
As  for  a  hope  on  Thy  dear  breast  to  lie  ; 

But  be  Thou  still  my  Shepherd  —  still  with  such 
Compassion  as  may  melt  to  such  a  cry  ; 

That  so  I  hear  Thy  feet,  and  feel  Thy  touch, 
And  dimly  see  Thy  face  ere  yet  I  die." 

Any  study  of  the  poetry  of  our  time  lends 
new  strength  to  the  conviction  that  the  great 
poet  is  always  a  man  of  faith.  It  may  not  be 
perfectly  coherent  faith,  exactly  ordered  and 
arranged  in  easily  distinguished  categories. 
But  it  is  a  faith  wherein  some  vital  principle 
resides.  The  poet  looks  out  upon  a  world  and 
in  upon  a  heart  where  confusion  is  evident 
enough ;  but  it  is  the  confusion  of  abundant 
material  awaiting  the  builder,  not  the  confu- 
sion of  the  wasted  city  ready  for  the  sower 
of  salt.  The  poet  who  would  sing  for  some 
later  age  as  well  as  for  his  own  must  tell  of 
the  realms  of  experience  yet  awaiting  human 
exploration,  and  supply  some  guidance  to  the 
explorer.  A  map,  the  latter  does  not  ask  for. 
What  he  does  ask,  and  has  a  right  to  expect 


POPULAR  THEOLOGICAL  THOUGHT         71 

to  find,  is  some  truth  which  shall  enable  him 
to  keep  his  bearings,  and  always  orientate 
himself  correctly. 

One  great  poet  of  to-day  in  attempting  to 
judge  the  World-maker  by  the  world  has 
asked :  — 

"  Is  there  strength  there  ?  —  enough  :  intelligence  ? 
Ample  :  but  goodness  in  a  like  degree  ? 
Not  to  the  human  eye  in  the  present  state, 
An  isocele  deficient  in  the  base."  * 

Browning's  questions  are  not  to  be  an- 
swered lightly  for  the  reason  that  they  are 
soberly,  bravely,  and  expectantly  asked.  But 
the  line  along  which  the  answer  is  to  be  dis- 
covered is  suggested  by  Tennyson's  exhor- 
tation :  — 

"  Cleave  ever  to  the  sunnier  side  of  doubt, 
And  cling  to  Faith  beyond  the  forms  of  Faith  ! 
She  reels  not  in  the  storm  of  warring  words, 
She  brightens  at  the  clash  of  '  Yes  '  and  '  No.' 
She  sees  the  Best  that  glimmers  thro'  the  Worst, 
She  feels  the  Sun  is  hid  but  for  a  night, 
She  spies  the  Summer  thro'  the  winter  bud, 
She  tastes  the  fruit  before  the  blossom  falls, 
She  hears  the  lark  within  the  songless  egg, 
She  finds  the  fountain  where  they  wailed,  Mirage  ! " 

Note.     For  a  fuller  discussion  of  this  theme  the  author 
ventures  to  refer  to  his  essay  on  "  The  Religious  Significance 
of  Recent  English  Verse,"  in  Bibliotheca  Sacra,  April,  1898. 
1  Browning,  The  Ring  and  the  Book  —  The  Pope. 


IV 

THE   RELIGION   OF  THE  PEOPLE 

In  the  last  chapter  we  discussed  the  confu- 
sion which  has  attended  the  attempt  among 
the  masses  of  men  to  interpret  the  universe 
through  the  idea  of  God.  To  speak  more 
exactly,  it  has  been  an  attempt  to  give  mean- 
ing and  congruity  to  life  in  face  of  the  prob- 
lems which  experience  forces  upon  it  —  for 
the  abstract  notion  of  the  universe  rarely 
oppresses  or  particularly  concerns  the  average 
man.  We  turn  now  to  a  consideration  of  the 
uncertainty  which  hampers  multitudes  in  their 
endeavor  to  regulate  conduct  through  this 
same  idea.  Here  we  enter  the  realm  of  re- 
ligion as  distinguished  from  theology.  It  is 
useless  to  claim  that  the  question  is  remote 
and  out  of  relation  to  life's  practical  con- 
cerns. In  a  real  sense  it  is  life's  most  practical 
concern.  Whether  Matthew  Arnold's  conten- 
tion that  conduct  comprises  three  fourths  of 
life  —  one  of  those  unsupported  claims  which 


THE  RELIGION   OF  THE   PEOPLE  73 

add  a  pseudo-scientific  authority  to  the  genu- 
ine literary  charm  of  his  writing  —  be  de- 
fensible or  not,  it  remains  true  that  nothing 
can  concern  life  more  intimately  than  the 
ideas  which  regulate  conduct,  and  give  to  it 
direction,  tone,  and  purpose.  This  regulation 
is  religion's  office.  It  was  never  more  clearly 
recognized  to  be  religion's  office  than  to-day. 
One  of  the  secrets  of  the  fretfulness  or  sad- 
ness which  characterizes  so  much  of  the  fiction 
and  poetry  of  the  last  century  lies  in  a  discern- 
ment of  the  confusion  into  which  religious 
thought  has  fallen. 

Men  are  everywhere  talking  about  the  age  of 
doubt  in  religion,  and  trying  to  make  out  that 
it  is  bringing  in  an  age  of  carelessness  in  con- 
duct. They  do  not  have  to  go  far  afield  for 
examples  which  seem  to  illustrate  their  claim. 
Whether  it  be  possible  to  substantiate  their 
claim  or  not  is  altogether  another  question ; 
for  the  doubt,  sometimes  regretful  and  some- 
times truculent,  which  has  unquestionably 
characterized  the  religious  thought  of  recent 
years  is  susceptible  of  two  widely  different  in- 
terpretations. Doubt  may  be  regarded  as  a  sign 
,of  an  approaching  divorce  between  conduct 
f  and  the  religious  idea,  or  as  a  sign  of  a  new 


74  THE  DYNAMIC  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

realization  of  the  need  of  natural  relations 
between  the  two.  The  history  of  religion 
lends  countenance  to  this  latter  view ;  for 
religion  has  developed  in  proportion  as  it  has 
felt  the  necessity  of  this  relation.  It  has 
become  more  spiritual,  and  so  more  deeply 
influential,  as  it  has  sought  persistently  for 
a  rational  faith,  and  insisted  at  the  same  time 
upon  faith's  vital  inter-relations  with  con- 
duct. This  endeavor  has  always  been  ham- 
pered, to  be  sure,  by  the  ineradicable  tendency 
of  conduct  to  become  formal,  building  a  roof  of 
observance  over  its  own  head,  as  it  were,  and 
dwelling  beneath  it,  out  of  reach  of  faith's 
vitalizing  influences.  When  conduct  has  thus 
degenerated  into  observance,  it  ceases  to  be 
conduct  in  the  deeper  and  more  vital  sense ; 
for  conduct  is  naturally  plastic  in  the  hands 
of  will;  observance  is  obdurate.  The  abso- 
lute refusal  to  be  content  with  life's  offering 
of  observance  upon  the  altar  of  faith,  when 
faith  asked  for  its  conduct,  has  ever  been  the 
note  of  the  prophet;  while  the  tendency 
toward  such  content  has  in  all  ages  been  the 
great  temptation  of  the  priest.  Judaism  and 
Christianity  have  proved  no  exception  to  the 
rule  that  all  religion  tends  to  harden  into  for- 


THE  RELIGION   OF  THE  PEOPLE  75 

niality  on  the  one  hand,  or  to  etherealize  into 
mysticism  on  the  other.  Each  has,  however, 
produced  a  school  of  prophets  who  refused  to 
let  Jew  or  Christian  rest  in  either  form  or 
dream.  The  most  clairvoyant  among  the  dis- 
ciples of  both  dispensations  have  insisted 
upon  this  vital  relation  of  faith  to  conduct. 
They  were  not  satisfied  that  faith  should  issue 
in  regulative  rules  or  maxims,  and  that  these 
should  govern  conduct.  It  was  needful  that 
life  in  its  daily  acts  and  relations  should  be 
inspired  and  illumined  by  faith. 

So  Isaiah,  with  his  "  Come  now,  and  let  us 
reason  together,  saith  the  Lord,"  was  bent 
upon  making  and  keeping  religion  real.  He 
sought  to  bring  the  reality  of  sin  into  saving 
touch  with  the  reality  of  grace,  and  to  order 
conduct  in  the  light  of  the  resultant  expe- 
rience. The  tragedy  of  Hosea's  shattered  fam- 
ily life  was  but  a  picture  of  God's  patient 
love  of  Israel,  upon  which  Israel  poured  the 
despite  of  unfaithful  conduct.  The  burden  of 
the  anonymous  Malachi  was  that  men  should 
believe  in  God  enough  to  pay  Him  formal 
reverence,  and  yet  despise  Him  so  much  as 
to  permit  the  form  to  degenerate  into  a 
practical  mockery.    This  prophetic  influence, 


76  THE  DYNAMIC   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

which  never  was  altogether  lacking  in  Is- 
rael, kept  the  spark  of  genuine  faith  aglow, 
despite  all  that  formalism  could  do  to  smother 
it.  There  was  enough  good  spiritual  soil  in 
Judaism  to  make  it  possible  for  the  mus- 
tard seed  of  a  new  religion  to  take  root  and 
grow. 

Nevertheless,  the  great  enemy  with  which  the 
new  truth  was  forced  to  struggle  was  still  the 
old  tendency  to  regard  religion  as  a  matter  of 
observance  rather  than  as  a  source  of  life  and 
a  regulator  of  conduct.  The  religious  men 
who  surrounded  Jesus  were  thrown  into  con- 
fusion—  honest  confusion,  no  doubt,  in  many 
cases  —  by  the  extraordinary  interpretations 
whereby  He  seemed  to  transform  the  old 
Law.  Their  religious  life  had  been  a  thing 
which  submitted  itself  to  metes,  bounds,  and 
well-defined  ordinances.  His  did  not.  The 
Sabbath  of  the  Scribes,  with  its  limitations 
and  prohibitions,  was  a  matter  that  could  be 
defined.  His  Sabbath,  made  for  the  use  of 
man,  and  upon  which  it  was  lawful  to  do 
good,  seemed  vague,  indefinable,  and  liable 
to  revolutionary  abuse.  Their  Law,  with  its 
eye  for  an  eye,  and  its  fine-wrought  distinc- 
tions concerning  murder,  adultery,  and  the 


THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  PEOPLE  77 

honor  due  to  parents,  though  it  might  be 
intricate,  at  least  aimed  to  be  exact.  His  Law 
of  Love,  with  its  emphasis  upon  the  attitude 
of  the  heart  toward  God  and  fellow  man, 
threw  Pharisaic  exactness  to  the  winds.  It 
was  doubtless  criticised  upon  the  ground  that 
it  was  antinomian  and  liable  to  miserable 
misuse  in  the  sphere  of  conduct.  In  point  of 
fact  it  was  adapted  and  destined  to  regulate 
conduct  as  no  rule  of  observance  could  do. 

But  the  world  has  been  slow  to  perceive 
this.  The  early  Church  almost  split  upon 
some  of  the  questions  which  grew  out  of  it. 
The  New  Testament  word  for  religion  was 
6pr)<TK€ia,  and  its  primary  significance  had 
to  do  with  external  observance  and  worship. 
St.  James  uses  it  with  a  fine  insight  into  the 
change  wrought  by  the  Gospel,  making  it 
perfectly  plain  to  his  readers  that  it  can  never 
become  a  Christian  word  except  as  its  spiritual 
content  be  discerned,  and  religion,  ceasing  to 
be  a  thing  of  rules,  maxims,  and  observances, 
become  the  inspirer  and  regulator  of  conduct 
through  the  heart.1  The  tides  of  religious  life 
that  have  ebbed  and  flowed  through  the  his- 

1  See  Fairbairn,  Christ  in  the  Centuries,  pp.  171,  172,  for  a 
discussion  of  6pr]<TKe(a. 


78         THE  DYNAMIC   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

tory  of  the  Church  serve  to  illustrate  and 
substantiate  this  claim.  The  great  reformers 
have  been  the  men  who  touched  the  springs 
of  faith  rather  than  those  who  laid  down 
rules  of  conduct.  Regulation  has  always 
proved  untrustworthy  when  imposed  from 
without.  It  has  been  vital  and  therefore  gen- 
uinely effective  only  when  it  has  resulted 
from  inspiration  within.  The  preaching  that 
has  seemed  to  be  primarily  ethical  has  often 
proved  less  effectively  ethical  than  the  preach- 
ing that  has  been  primarily  spiritual.  Indeed, 
a  case  might  be  made  out  for  the  claim  that  ■ 
merely  doctrinal  preaching  has  proved  as  ethi- 
cally effective  as  any  that  directed  attention 
immediately  to  conduct.  The  great  preachers 
of  the  English  Church  in  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury were  admirable  expounders  of  the  worth 
of  well-doing.  The  famous  Deist,  who  con- 
fessed that  he  sent  his  servants  to  church 
that  they  might  learn  not  to  cut  his  throat, 
was  not  without  some  insight  into  human  na- 
ture and  the  influence  of  ethical  teaching  on 
it.  Yet,  after  all  is  said,  the  real  hope  for  bet- 
ter life  lay  quite  as  much  in  the  field-preach- 
ing of  the  Methodists  as  in  the  excellent  dull- 
ness of  the  pulpit  homilies.    The  Evangelical 


THE  RELIGION  OF  THE   PEOPLE  79 

movement  was  largely  instrumental  in  a  re- 
formation of  conduct  because  it  made  sin  and 
need  felt.  The  contemporary  ethical  preach- 
ing was  directed  toward  making  virtue  seem 
desirable  to  men  who  were  already  very  well 
content  with  themselves.  The  Evangelicals 
made  men  profoundly  discontented  with  them- 
selves ;  and  it  is  a  commonplace  of  experi- 
ence that  the  "  must  "of  a  conscious  need  is 
always  more  fertile  in  expedients  and  more 
persistently  powerful  as  a  motive  than  the 
"  may  "  of  mere  comfortable  opportunity. 

The  last  five  and  twenty  years  of  the  nine- 
teenth century  witnessed  a  considerable  re- 
vival of  ethical  teaching  and  preaching.  This 
was  needed  and  proved  helpful.  But  those 
who  thought  they  saw  in  it  the  ultimate 
form  which  religion  was  to  assume  are  likely 
to  find  themselves  mistaken.  The  Church  is 
still  something  more  than  a  philanthropic 
club,  and  the  art  of  the  preacher  will  not 
always  be  content  to  give  first  place  to  the 
well-wrought  homily.  The  frequent  resort  to 
the  homily  on  the  part  of  preachers  and  a 
certain  demand  for  it  on  the  part  of  the 
people  are  quite  as  significant  of  a  general 
religious  fogginess  as  of  an  awakening  to  the 


80  THE  DYNAMIC   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

need  of  better  morals.  The  dissertation  upon 
conduct  is  always  the  easy  thing.  It  makes 
but  moderate  demands  upon  either  preacher 
or  congregation.  It  seems  to  comport  well 
with  the  decencies  of  worship  and  religious 
observance.  It  rarely  arouses  feeling  to  an 
undue  pitch ;  it  is  never  accompanied  by  hys- 
teria ;  and  it  issues  in  something  immediate 
—  something  that  the  eye  can  see  and  the 
hand  handle.  There  is  less  sowing  of  winter 
wheat,  which  must  lie  dormant  for  a  season 
and  pass  through  strange  transformation  on 
its  way  to  fruition,  than  in  the  older  preach- 
ing; and  it  is  the  thing  which  can  still  be 
done  while  both  preacher  and  hearer,  writer 
and  reader,  are  in  grave  doubt  as  to  whether 
there  be  any  sound  foundation  of  spiritual 
principle  under  their  feet  or  not.  This  sort  of 
preaching  has  its  gastronomic  counterpart  in 
those  predigested  or  partly  cooked  foods  whose 
virtues  every  newspaper  exploits,  quite  uncon- 
scious that  it  arraigns  at  the  same  time  the 
common  incapacity  of  our  kitchens  and  our 
stomachs.  It  is  of  course  a  fortunate  thing 
that  men  persist  in  good  conduct  even  when 
in  serious  doubt  as  to  the  doctrine  which 
underlies  it.    This  persistence,  however,  is  not 


THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  PEOPLE  81 

likely  to  be  indefinitely  prolonged.  The  con- 
duct degenerates  rapidly  into  mere  observ- 
ance, unless  the  doctrine  be  articulate  and 
comprehensible. 

One  need  not  have  a  very  wide  acquaint- 
ance, or  be  gifted  with  unusual  powers  of 
observation,  to  discover  that  this  is  just  the 
case  into  which  much  of  the  doctrine  that 
men  have  been  in  the  habit  of  regarding  as 
most  vitally  related  to  conduct  has  fallen. 
The  number  of  those  who  categorically  deny 
the  doctrines  known  as  Christian  is  small. 
But  those  who  question  their  validity,  cavil 
at  their  basis  in  fact,  and  wonder  at  their 
authority  in  the  realm  of  action,  are  a  mul- 
titude ;  whether  they  are  increasing  or  not,  it 
is  beside  our  present  purpose  to  inquire. 

Our  purpose  leads  us  rather  to  note  some 
of  the  sources  of  this  confusion.  It  is  safe 
to  leave  out  of  account  the  factitious  doubt 
which  is  but  an  expression  of  the  unruliness 
of  human  passion  and  its  restiveness  under 
all  restraint  of  principle.  The  most  evidently 
valid  principle  of  conduct  will  find  occasional 
contemners  so  long  as  there  remains  in  man 
a  remnant  of  that  childish  unreason  which 
leads  us  to  cry  out  upon  what  arraigns  us  at 


82         THE  DYNAMIC   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

the  bar  of  our  unwilling  judgment.  There 
is  a  demoniac  element  in  us  all  which  would 
raise  its  strident  "  What  have  we  to  do  with 
thee  ?  "  against  the  presence  of  transcendent 
worth,  were  it  not  muzzled  by  saner  powers. 
With  this  we  are  not  dealing;  but  rather 
with  those  questionings,  sometimes  welcomed 
by  human  frailty  and  sometimes  contended 
with  as  the  heralds  of  despair,  which  lead 
men  to  doubt  the  validity  of  Christianity  as 
a  Way  of  Life. 

In  point  of  fact,  such  questionings  were 
to  be  expected  with  the  decline  of  the  prin- 
ciple of  authority.  The  genius  of  Western 
Christendom  for  centuries  occupied  itself 
with  system-building.  It  built  a  Church  after 
the  model  of  the  Roman  Empire,  and  con- 
structed a  system  of  religious  doctrine  as 
elaborate  and  well  defined  as  its  system  of 
ecclesiastical  government.  In  both  these  he- 
mispheres of  its  life  "  authority  "  was  a  great 
word  ;  sometimes  all  the  greater  because, 
like  the  sacred  Name  of  Hebrew  Scripture, 
it  was  rarely  uttered.  No  man  objected  to 
authority.  The  ipse  dixit  of  the  Council  or 
the  Bishop  in  matters  ecclesiastic  was  recog- 
nized to  be  the  normal  as  well  as  ultimate 


THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  PEOPLE  83 

solution  of  all  vexatious  questions.  The  same 
general  method  obtained  with  reference  to 
questions  in  philosophy  or  natural  science. 
A  great  name  was  the  most  telling  argument 
that  could  be  adduced  to  substantiate  a  po- 
sition. This  reverence  for  authority  grew 
old  slowly.  Its  strength,  even  when  threat- 
ened by  age,  enjoyed  more  than  one  period 
of  recrudescence.  The  New  Learning  did  not 
immediately  undermine  it,  but  merely  sup- 
plied new  intellectual  pursuits  for  those  whose 
restless  minds  might  have  threatened  the  prin- 
ciple of  authority.  The  discovery  of  America 
invalidated  the  authority  of  old  geographers ; 
but  it  also  opened  new  fields  of  material  and 
spiritual  adventure.  Even  the  Protestant  Re- 
formation was  less  a  rebellion  against  the  prin- 
ciple of  authority  than  an  effectual  protest 
against  a  particular  source  of  authority.  It 
was  a  revolution  which  succeeded  in  divid- 
ing the  existing  system,  rather  than  in  over- 
throwing it.  Two  systems  resulted.  The  Pope 
and  the  ecclesiasticism  which  he  represented 
remained  at  the  head  of  one.  In  the  other, 
the  allegiance  which  had  been  the  Pope's 
was  transferred  to  the  Book.  The  notion  of 
authority  vested  in  an  earthly  fountain-head 


84         THE  DYNAMIC  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

and  exercised  under  a  well-defined  system 
was  still  regnant.  It  would  be  unjust  to 
deny  the  deep  insight  of  the  great  reform- 
ers and  their  perception  of  the  power  of  a 
Divine  Spirit  ever  interpreting  the  truth  to 
men  in  terms  of  experience.  Their  visions  of 
this  truth  were,  however,  as  fleeting  as  they 
were  inspiring,  and  the  great  body  of  their  dis- 
ciples settled  back  into  dependence  upon  an 
earthly  authority,  which  they  connected  with 
a  heavenly  source  by  a  doctrine  of  inspira- 
tion made  to  order.  There  was,  to  be  sure,  a 
right  of  private  judgment,  but  it  was  little 
more  than  a  right  of  interpretation.  Its  metes 
and  bounds  were  definite  and  often  narrow. 

To  say  all  this  is  in  no  sense  to  belittle 
the  Reformation's  place  in  the  intellectual 
and  spiritual  history  of  Christendom.  It  was 
an  enormous  step  in  the  direction  of  free- 
dom. The  forces  resident  in  it  were  destined 
to  lead  the  world  farther  than  the  Reform- 
ers dreamed,  though  it  took  generations  for 
the  real  implications  of  the  principles  which 
they  established  to  appear.  Indeed,  they  are 
but  dimly  discerned  yet  by  the  masses  of 
men.  Protestants  have  indignantly  repelled 
the  accusation  of  Catholics  that  the  wild  out- 


THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  PEOPLE  85 

breaks  of  fanaticism  on  the  part  of  certain 
of  the  earlier  Anabaptists  and  Quakers  were 
legitimate  fruits  of  the  Reformation.  Yet 
this  assertion  has  enough  truth  to  entitle  it 
to  respectful  consideration.  The  real  condem- 
nation which  it  carries,  however,  belongs  to 
the  Catholic  in  quite  as  large  measure  as  it 
can  to  the  Protestant  regime.  Such  fanati- 
cism was  the  reaction  of  untrained  and  sternly 
repressed  minds,  after  sudden  release.  It 
represented  a  license  that  was  one  day  to 
become  liberty,  and  a  despite  of  supreme 
authority  that  through  alternate  experiences 
of  rebellion  and  servitude  must  one  day  find 
the  golden  mean  of  friendship.  During  the 
last  century  we  have  seen  this  change  passing 
upon  the  notion  of  authority  in  every  depart- 
ment of  thought.  The  principles  underlying 
the  art  of  education  have  experienced  radical 
transformation.  Authorities  have  arisen  and 
fallen  until,  at  the  new  century's  beginning, 
all  authority  has  seemed  to  be  at  discount, 
and  pedagogy  has  become  the  toy  of  an  em- 
pirical psychology. 

Ever  since  the  French  Revolution,  the  source 
of  authority  in  government  has  been  the  play- 
thing of  demagogues  and  the  puzzle  of  philoso- 


86  THE  DYNAMIC  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

phers.  The  anarchist  has  categorically  denied 
its  existence  outside  the  impulse  of  his  own 
breast.  The  rare  and  occasional  confessed 
aristocrat  has  as  categorically  asserted  author- 
ity's derivation  from  some  family  or  little 
group  of  families  in  each  state,  whose  ances- 
tors won  their  right  to  its  exercise  on  the 
field  or  in  the  cabinet.  The  majority  of  men 
have  been  content  meanwhile  simply  to  doubt 
the  principle  of  authority  in  government,  re- 
cognizing any  de  facto  master  who  might  have 
wisdom  enough  to  use  his  power  endurably. 
In  the  realm  of  natural  science  it  has  been 
the  student's  boast  that  the  day  of  the  great- 
est man's  ascendency  is  briefer  than  ever  be- 
fore. The  newspapers  and  popular  lecturers 
still  remind  us  from  time  to  time  of  the  pro- 
fessor who  told  his  assistant  to  remove  from 
the  library  shelves  every  volume  dealing  with 
his  special  branch  of  science  which  was  more 
than  ten  years  old,  and  to  consign  it  to  the 
oblivion  of  the  cellar;  inasmuch  as  nothing 
of  a  decade's  standing  was  worth  reading 
by  a  progressive  man.  The  tendency  of  the 
last  two  generations  has  been  to  arraign 
systems,  to  discount  authority,  to  hold  tradi- 
tion in  worst  possible  repute,  and  to  exalt  the 


THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  PEOPLE  87 

empiric  and  the  opportunist.  Let  it  be  dis- 
tinctly understood  that  I  am  not  decrying  or 
bemoaning  this  tendency.  It  is  a  fact  of  ex- 
perience to  be  recognized  and  assigned  to  its 
place  in  the  history  of  human  progress.  I 
incline  to  emphasize  it  here,  because  it  sug- 
gests the  further  fact  that  the  doubt  which 
these  generations  have  cast  upon  systems  of 
Christian  thought,  and  the  uncertainty  with 
which  they  have  regarded  the  relation  of 
Christianity  to  the  conduct  of  life,  have  their 
counterparts  in  other  spheres  of  human  ex- 
perience. 

When  we  come  to  inquire  into  the  more 
immediate  causes  of  this  doubt,  they  prove  to 
be  so  numerous  and  so  closely  intermingled 
as  to  make  specification  difficult.  It  is  scarcely 
to  be  questioned,  however,  that  the  growth  of 
a  scientific  Biblical  criticism  has  been  a  potent 
factor  in  developing  present  conditions.  It 
was  a  shock  to  the  popular  estimate  of  the 
Bible  to  treat  the  Scriptures  as  a  literature 
instead  of  a  sacrosanct  volume.  Men  now 
living  no  doubt  remember  the  start  of  half- 
pained  surprise  with  which  the  orthodox 
world  greeted  Stanley's  reference  to  Abra- 
ham as  a  "sheik."    To  apply  the   terms  of 


88  THE  DYNAMIC   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

common  Eastern  life  to  him  seemed  like  a  be- 
littling of  his  divine  vocation.  But  the  world 
was  to  see  greater  things  than  these.  It  was 
to  see  a  searching  inquiry  instituted  into  the 
extent  and  the  worth  of  the  Christian  tradi- 
tion which  hedged  the  sacred  documents  of 
the  new  dispensation  almost  as  closely  as  the 
traditions  of  the  Jewish  fathers  had  ever 
hedged  the  Law.  Under  such  inquisition  it 
was  to  see  considerable  portions  of  this  tra- 
dition break  down.  It  was  called  upon  to 
formulate  a  new  doctrine  of  Sacred  Scripture. 
This,  to  the  man  who  had  been  used  to  treat 
his  Bible  as  an  arsenal  of  proof  texts,  was 
hard  and  painful  work.  He  was  generally  in- 
clined to  exaggerate  the  negative  implications 
of  the  demand,  and,  perhaps,  to  refuse  to 
honor  it  because  it  seemed  to  be  so  largely 
negative.  Nor  should  we  forget  how  vehe- 
mently the  non-Christian,  to  whose  unbelief 
the  traditional  view  of  the  Bible  was  a  rebuke 
and  an  offense,  seconded  the  protest  of  his 
ultra-orthodox  brother.  Both  argued  from 
the  premiss  that  if  the  tradition  went,  all 
must  go.  Either  the  Bible  must  be  sacrosanct, 
or  it  must  be  profane.  The  man  who  touched 
the  Isaiah  authorship  touched  the  foundations 


THE  RELIGION   OF  THE  PEOPLE  89 

of  belief;  and  if  a  flesh-and-blood  prophet 
were  not  swallowed  by  a  literal  fish,  then  must 
our  faith  be  vain. 

It  is  idle  to  argue  that  this  premiss  is 
absurd.  That  may  be,  but  it  is  to  be  remem- 
bered that  where  feeling  is  involved,  an 
absurd  premiss  will  often  serve  the  purposes 
of  a  very  telling  argument.  An  absurd  pre- 
miss has  once  and  again  proved  to  be  a  stick 
abundantly  good  enough  to  beat  a  so-called 
"  higher  critic  "  with.  A  little  time  is  needed 
for  the  absurdity  of  premisses  to  make  itself 
evident  to  the  man  of  the  street.  Meanwhile 
the  beating  may  go  merrily  on,  with  his  ap- 
proval rather  than  otherwise,  since  it  pro- 
mises to  silence  a  discordant  voice  and  cast 
out  a  fermenting  leaven.  Yet  the  voice  per- 
sists. The  leaven  works.  The  man  of  the 
street  perceives  at  last  that  what  he  be- 
holds is  something  more  than  a  squabble.  It, 
is  revolution ;  and  his  imagination,  true  to 
its  nature,  proceeds  to  an  exaggerated  esti- 
mate of  the  probable  consequences.  He  for- 
gets that  as  revolution  never  changes  the 
genius  of  a  people,  so  attack  upon  the  forms 
of  religious  conviction  never  eradicates  the 
conviction    itself.     Doubt    and    consequent 


90  THE  DYNAMIC   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

confusion  may  be  introduced  for  a  time.  The 
validity  of  great  principles  may  temporarily  be 
called  in  question  ;  but  the  principles  them- 
selves will  persist  in  spite  of  all  attacks  upon 
the  forms  in  which  they  are  commonly  ex- 
pressed. 

Another  fruitful  source  of  confusion  to  the 

religious  thought  of  multitudes  of  people  has 

been  the  attempt  to  popularize  the  study  of 

comparative  religion.    It  may  be  said  that  the 

study  of  so  abstruse  a  science  can  never  be 

popularized  ;  and  in  a  sense  this  is  true.    But 

it  is  also  true  that  the  results  of  this  study  are 

sure  to   filter  down  into   the  literature  and 

thought  of  the  unlearned,  either  in  the  form 

of   rash  hypothesis   or    of  well-substantiated 

conclusion.     In  whichever  form  they  come, 

they  are  likely  to  bring  temporary  confusion 

with  them.    The  average  Christian  thinks  of 

his   religion   as   he  thinks  of   his  Bible,    as 

original  in  an  exclusive  sense.    The  discovery 

of  a  parallel  to  any  feature  of  either  tends 

at  first  to  diminish  its  authority  in  his  eyes. 

The  fact  that  Christianity  comprehends  the 

theanthropic  elements  which  characterize  the 

Aryan  religions  with  the  theocratic  elements 

which    mark   the  Semitic   religions  is   more 


THE  RELIGION   OF  THE  PEOPLE  91 

than  a  beautiful  coincidence.  It  is  signifi- 
cant of  Christianity's  divine  commission  ac- 
cording to  the  law  of  an  endless  life ;  it 
prefigures  its  universal  fitness  to  the  needs  of 
men.  This  significance  does  not,  however,  He 
upon  the  surface.  The  first  thought  of  the 
man  to  whom  this  message  of  the  scholar  is 
new  may  very  well  be  that  Christianity  must 
be  less  of  a  divine  revelation  than  he  has 
supposed,  since  suggestions  and  premonitions 
of  its  great  doctrines  have  come  to  men  of 
other  and  prior  faiths.  It  is  disagreeable  news 
to  him  that  there  should  be  an  Assyrian 
tradition  of  creation  and  of  deluge  with  which 
every  fair-minded  scholar  must  consent  to 
compare  Genesis.  The  thought  of  ethnic  trin- 
ities comes  perilously  close  to  blasphemy. 
The  more  devout  he  is,  the  more  he  feels  the 
obligation  to  explain  away  all  adumbrations 
of  the  great  truth  of  incarnation  previous  to 
its  exemplification  in  Christ,  and  the  less  is 
his  willingness  to  admit  that  any  word  to 
which  Christ  gave  universal  significance  and 
currency  had  ever  found  previous  utterance 
on  the  lips  of  some  outstanding  man  reared 
in  an  ethnic  faith. 

Yet  how  if  he  be  forced  finally  to  admit 


92      -    THE  DYNAMIC  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

these  things?  Then  will  come  the  pains 
which  accompany  growth  into  a  larger  con- 
ception of  the  nature  of  Christianity  and 
the  method  of  revelation.  Often  enough  this 
growth  will  at  first  seem  hostile  to  develop- 
ment. The  man's  grip  upon  his  faith  as  a 
guide  in  matters  of  conduct  will  frequently 
suffer  in  some  degree  during  the  process. 
Under  the  strabismic  influence  of  it,  he  may 
conceivably  join  the  short-sighted  crew  who 
are  ever  arguing  that  if  Christianity  be  not 
absolutely  unique,  it  cannot  be  authoritative ; 
that  if  it  prove  to  have  some  things  in  com- 
mon with  the  ethnic  religions,  then  it  can  be 
no  better  than  they ;  and  that  there  is  every 
reason  for  supposing  that  each  race's  faith  is 
the  one  best  fitted  to  its  need.  The  non  se- 
quitur  of  such  reasoning  is  egregious  enough  ; 
but  it  suits  the  purposes  of  some  who  would 
diminish  the  troublesome  claims  of  Chris- 
tianity upon  their  personal  allegiance ;  of 
others  who  desire  for  any  reason  whatsoever 
to  antagonize  modern  scholarship  ;  nor  is  the 
fallacy  always  discerned  by  the  honest  souls 
to  whom  the  faith  of  the  fathers  is  ineffably 
dear,  who  at  the  same  time  see  that  the  dis- 
coveries  of   modern    scholarship   cannot   be 


THE  RELIGION   OF  THE  PEOPLE  93 

ignored,  and  who  are  heart-sick  at  the  appar- 
ent antinomy  between  the  new  science  and 
the  old  system.  It  is  hard  for  them  to  per- 
ceive how  a  truth  imperfectly  apprehended 
by  man's  reason  can  be  the  truth ;  or  how 
error  can  under  any  condition  find  place  in 
the  process  of  a  divine  revelation.  They  are 
impatient  of  the  method  of  growth  and  dis- 
dainful of  God's  habit  of  using  imperfect 
instruments. 

If  space  sufficed,  it  might  be  shown  how 
closely  related  all  this  doubt  is  to  a  dubious 
apprehension  of  the  fact  of  personality  —  a 
tendency  to  discount  the  worth  of  the  per- 
son, and  to  resort  to  mechanical  contrivance 
for  explanation  of  physical,  mental,  and  moral 
phenomena.  It  is  a  mistake  to  assume  that 
this  lack  of  faith  in  the  person  is  a  result  of 
so-called  scientific  "  materialism."  Personal- 
ity is  always  at  discount  when  men  pin  their 
faith  to  a  system,  whether  the  system  bear  the 
name  of  Calvin,  or  Comte,  or  Spencer.  Dur- 
ing the  last  fifty  years  it  has  been  revealed  to 
philosophers  that  their  systems  were  partial. 
Some  of  the  more  discerning  among  them 
have  perceived  that  their  systems,  from  the 
very  nature  of  the  case,  must  continue  to  be 


94         THE  DYNAMIC   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

partial.  The  essence  of  life  and  the  springs 
of  power  are  not  in  them.  The  former  is  too 
subtle,  the  latter  too  ebullient,  to  be  confined 
in  any  cage  of  mere  dialectic.  With  this  con- 
viction has  naturally  come  a  feeling  of  uncer- 
tainty and  doubt,  since  serious  men  do  not 
transfer  their  allegiance  easily.  This  doubt 
has  been  most  painful  when  it  has  hampered 
religious  faith  and  teaching.  It  has  seemed 
to  be  most  hostile  to  life  when  it  has  threat- 
ened to  divorce  religion  and  morals.  But 
gradually  we  have  been  coming  to  see  that  if 
allegiance  must  be  withdrawn  from  systems, 
it  is  only  that  it  may  be  transferred  to  that 
which  gave  the  systems  all  the  life  they  ever 
had  and  all  the  promise  of  continuance  they 
could  ever  boast.  The  new  object  is  a  Power. 
I  say  u Power"  rather  than  " Person,"  not 
because  the  latter  designation  is  excluded, 
but  because  it  represents  the  goal  which  spir- 
itual experience  attains  as  a  reward  of  service. 
One  may,  without  fear  of  contradiction,  affirm 
that  every  man  in  the  sphere  of  conduct  has 
experience  of  the  Dynamic  of  Christianity ; 
though  of  course  it  would  be  absurd  to  claim 
that  he  always  connects  the  source  of  his  ex- 
perience with  a  system  of  Christian  thought 


THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  PEOPLE  95 

or  belief.  Indeed,  he  may  never  realize  in  this 
present  life  the  personal  attributes  of  the 
Power  which  touches  and  influences  him. 
The  realization  of  this  is  for  him  the  fulfill- 
ment of  the  Beatific  Vision. 


THE   SOCIAL  UNREST 

The  student  of  the  history  of  Christendom 
finds  few  sadder  chapters  than  those  which  tell 
the  story  of  the  struggle  of  the  poor  for  an 
amelioration  of  their  lot.  There  is  a  pathos 
quite  free  from  any  taint  of  sentimentality 
about  their  short  and  simple  annals.  The  very 
brevity  and  simplicity  with  which  history  ushers 
in  and  dismisses  the  incidents  of  a  peasant  up- 
rising bespeak  the  dumbness  of  the  multitude 
whose  desperation  inaugurated  it  and  whose 
hopes  were  built  upon  it.  In  a.  d.  287  the 
Bagauds  —  peasants  of  Gaul  —  managed  by 
some  herculean  effort  after  organization  to  be- 
siege Autun  for  seven  months  and  finally  to 
sack  it.  The  Emperor  Maximian  succeeded  at 
last  in  breaking  the  power  of  the  insurrection  ; 
but  it  was  long  before  the  old  quiet  of  despair- 
ing poverty  was  restored ;  and  the  misery  of 
the  Gallic  coloni  and  dedititii  which  caused 
the  outbreak  is  dumb  to  this  day  so  far  as  any 
really  articulate  utterance  of  itself  goes. 


THE  SOCIAL  UNREST  97 

The  Jacquerie  of  1358,  if  not  as  silent,  is 
still  as  incoherent.  It  has  had,  to  be  sure,  a  so- 
called  chronicler  in  Froissart.  But  Froissart  is 
in  the  highest  degree  uncritical.  By  his  lack 
of  sympathy  with  the  people,  as  well  as  by  his 
ignorance,  he  was  unfitted  to  tell  the  story  of 
their  hopeless  fight  for  betterment  of  hard  con- 
ditions ;  and  since  what  the  world  thinks  that 
it  knows  is  founded  largely  upon  Froissart,  the 
commonly  received  history  belongs  to  the  vast 
category  of  "  knowledge  which  is  not  so." 
The  true  story  is  sorry  enough.  The  outbreak 
took  place  on  the  21st  of  May,  and  was  over 
by  the  9th  of  June.  Vengeance  began  at  once, 
and  continued  through  August.  The  whole 
affair  was  as  bad  and  brutal  as  such  outbreaks 
always  are,  but  the  letters  of  amnesty  of  the 
Regent  of  France  issued  on  the  10th  of  August 
have  been  preserved,  and  show  pretty  con- 
clusively the  scope  and  range  which  Froissart 
gave  to  a  naturally  active  imagination. 

So  we  have  but  the  scantiest  chronicle  of 
Wat  Tyler's  insurrection  in  1381  and  Jack 
Cade's  —  which  seems  to  have  been  mainly 
political  rather  than  economic  and  religious 
—  in  1450. 

There  are  few  chapters  in  the  history  of  the 


98  THE  DYNAMIC   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

period  immediately  preceding  the  Eeforma- 
tion  in  Germany  which  the  student  of  the 
life  of  the  people  would  give  more  to  hear 
authoritatively  and  minutely  told  than  that 
which  should  set  forth  the  story  of  the  Bund- 
schuh  Insurrection.  It  broke  out  in  1492, 
bearing  upon  its  banner  the  "  Bundschuh " 
or  peasant's  clog.  The  world-old  panacea  for 
such  outbreaks  —  the  sword  —  was  tried  upon 
it,  and  it  seemed  to  yield  to  treatment ;  though 
the  cobbler's  banner  was  not  taken.  This  had 
strange  adventures  on  its  journeyings  through 
the  Black  Forest  in  Joss  Fritz's  bosom  until 
it  could  be  upreared  again  in  1514.  Yet  his- 
tory is  almost  silent  concerning  all  that  the 
banner  stood  for.  The  hopes  and  fears  which 
it  symbolized  must  be  relegated  to  the  limbo 
of  unwritten  epics.  The  sober  historian  has 
little  hope  of  ever  making  them  authoritatively 
articulate. 

The  uprising  of  the  Kurucks  or  Crusaders 
of  Hungary  in  1513  falls  into  the  same  cate- 
gory. We  find  the  cause,  or  perhaps  better, 
the  excuse,  of  their  organization  in  the  advent 
of  Cardinal  Bacracz  from  Rome  armed  with  a 
Papal  Bull  against  infidels.  There  is  a  glimpse 
of  the  Transylvanian  leader  Dosza,  under  whom 


THE  SOCIAL  UNREST  99 

the  peasants  armed  and  attacked  the  nobles. 
We  know  that  he  was  captured  and  put  to 
death  with  torture ;  but  that  is  nearly  all  we 
know.  The  causes  of  the  desperate  unrest,  as 
they  arose  out  of  the  suffering  of  the  poor, 
whose  spirit  was  oppressed  but  not  yet  broken, 
can  be  but  dimly  discerned.  There  was  no 
chronicler  to  tell  the  story  from  the  peasant 
standpoint. 

The  great  revolt  of  the  next  decade  is  better 
understood.  It  was  in  one  sense  a  recrudes- 
cence of  the  old  agitation  for  a  better  standard 
of  life  that  at  the  close  of  the  preceding  cen- 
tury had  rallied  the  Dutch  poor  about  banners 
bearing  the  single  word  "  bread  "  or  "  cheese." 
In  another,  it  was  doubtless  due  to  the  new 
spirit  of  independence  fostered  by  the  Re- 
formation. With  some  plausibility  Erasmus 
wrote  to  Luther,  "  You  are  now  reaping  what 
you  have  sown."  Yet  upon  the  whole,  the 
movement  was  political  and  social  rather  than 
religious.  It  met  the  fate  of  its  predeces- 
sors. The  people  had  not  yet  found  a  voice, 
and  the  sword  has  ever  been  the  great  argu- 
ment wherewith  to  meet  the  truth  spoken  by 
an  unready  tongue.  Luther  tells  us  that  in 
Franconia,    11,000   peasants  were  slain  ;  in 


100        THE  DYNAMIC   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

Wiirtemberg,  6000 ;  in  Swabia,  10,000  ;  while 
in  Alsace,  the  Duke  of  Lorraine  was  said  to 
have  brought  up  the  count  to  20,000.x  The 
comparative  silence  of  history  is  an  enforced 
one  here,  since  dead  men  tell  no  tales.  There 
was  no  social  science  in  those  days,  inasmuch 
as  he  who  stated  and  tried  to  demonstrate 
even  a  simple  social  theorem  rarely  lived  to 
write  his  quod  est  demonstrandum. 

But  with  the  French  Revolution  the  army 
of  the  poor  found  a  voice.  Indeed,  it  may 
well  be  questioned  whether  the  most  notable 
result  of  that  great  social  upheaval  were  not 
this  fact,  that  the  man  who  thought  himself 
hardly  used  by  society  need  never  more  be 
either  dumb  or  inarticulate.  As  respects  effu- 
sion of  blood,  the  Terror  sinks  into  insig- 
nificance beside  the  Peasants'  Revolt  of  1524, 
which  cost  twenty  times  as  many  lives.  The 
one  hundred  thousand,  however,  were  mostly 
dumb,  while  the  five  thousand  whom  the  tum- 
bril carried  to  the  guillotine  could  speak  or  had 
articulate  friends,  and  those  who  sent  them 
there  could  reply.  The  incidents  of  the  Re- 
volution are  of  vast  interest  and  moment  in 
themselves  considered,  but  the  enormous  vol- 

1  Cf.  F.  Seebohm,  The  Era  of  the  Protestant  Revolution. 


THE  SOCIAL  UNREST  101 

ume  of  the  literature  which  relates  and  dis- 
cusses them  has  a  deeper  cause  ;  for,  as  the 
Reformation  marked  the  close  of  the  day 
when  Authority  could  dictate  what  a  man 
miffht  think,  so  the  Revolution  closed  the 
day  when  Authority  could  bid  a  man  be 
dumb  concerning  what  he  thought.  Since 
that  time  men  have  spoken  out  what  they 
were  wont  to  whisper  in  secret.  Great  store 
of  nonsense  has  been  talked  in  consequence, 
of  course;  but  it  has  also  followed  that  the 
world  has  grown  more  rapidly  acquainted 
with  the  circumstances  and  the  problems  of 
its  own  life  in  the  last  hundred  years  than 
in  the  whole  of  the  eighteen  centuries  pre- 
cedent to  them.  Especially  have  the  poor 
found  voice.  Even  the  "submerged  tenth," 
though  little  given  to  literary  or  oratorical 
effort  in  its  own  behalf,  has  always,  ere  it 
went  down,  found  some  bystander  to  listen 
to  its  cry  and  report  its  plight. 

Hence  has  arisen  the  so-called  Social  Prob- 
lem. There  is  nothing  new  about  it.  Every 
seer  in  every  age  has  discerned  its  existence. 
Moses  voiced  it  to  Pharaoh.  Amos,  groaning 
in  spirit  over  the  land  hunger  of  his  day, 
when  the  "poor  were  bought  for  silver  and 


102        THE   DYNAMIC   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

the  needy  for  a  pair  of  shoes/'  taught  his 
generation  that  its  only  safety  lay  in  recog- 
nizing and  solving  it.  Jesus  intimated  its 
abiding  character  in  his  assurance  that  the 
poor  were  ever  with  us  ;  for  while  there  is 
no  element  of  real  foretelling  in  this  saying, 
it  is  significant  of  a  universal  human  expe- 
rience. Langland  in  his  "  Piers  Ploughman  " 
has  acquainted  us  with  the  misery  of  the  Eng- 
lish peasant  class  in  the  fourteenth  century ; 
and  the  contrast  between  his  own  gaunt  discon- 
tent and  the  sleek  complacency  of  Chaucer  is 
a  comment  upon  the  social  problems  of  their 
time  quite  as  enlightening  and  suggestive  as 
anything  which  either  poet  set  down  in  black 
and  white.1  Yet  these  are  mere  occasional  ut- 
terances of  some  outstanding  prophet.  They 
scarce  represent  the  word  of  the  poor  man 
himself.   That  must  still  be  inferred. 

With  the  approach  of  the  Revolution  period, 
however,  some  of  the  elemental  factors  of  the 
problem  began  to  appear  more  clearly.  Arthur 
Young's  "  Journeys  in  France,"  published  in 
1793-94,  and  Sir  Frederick  Eden's  "  State  of 
the  Poor,"  in  1797,  gave  pretty  accurate  and 
clear-eyed  glimpses  of  real  conditions.  At  the 

1  Cf.  Green's  Short  History  of  English  People,  c.  v.  sec.  v. 


THE   SOCIAL   UNREST  103 

same  time,  through  a  multitude  of  new  avenues, 
the  voice  of  the  poor  began  to  reach  the  ears 
of  the  world.  Kant's  famous  waking  from  his 
"  dogmatic  slumber  "  was  no  more  real  than  the 
change  that  passed  over  the  masses  of  those 
who  had  been  hitherto  subject  to  authority, 
and  who  were  wont  to  regard  their  social 
status  as  fixed  and  permanent.  The  unnatural 
ebullience  of  revolution  was  bound  to  subside ; 
but  as  when  a  tidal  wave  wrecks  a  port,  other 
and  lesser  waves  were  equally  bound  to  recur. 
Equilibrium  is  as  slow  of  reestablishment  in 
society  as  in  water.  The  minor  revolutions  of 
1830  and  1848  on  the  Continent,  and  the 
great  constitutional  changes  —  revolutionary 
in  fact  rather  than  name  —  of  Parliamentary 
Reform  and  the  abolition  of  the  Corn  Laws 
in  England,  as  well  as  the  vast  increase  of 
America  in  wealth,  power,  and  ability  to  pro- 
vide opportunity  for  the  poor  man,  have  all 
had  their  influence  upon  social  conditions. 
Each  has  been  a  factor  in  the  restatement  of 
the  problem. 

It  is  worthy  of  note  that  with  this  new 
freedom  of  utterance  which  has  come  to  the 
poor  man,  and  with  the  increased  attention 
which  the  world  has  been  willing  to  accord 


104        THE  DYNAMIC   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

to  his  words,  a  change  has  crept  over  his  own 
definition  of  his  needs.  Any  one  who  reads  the 
story  of  the  organization  of  labor  may  well 
be  struck  with  the  fact  that  while  the  aims  of 
the  thoughtful  wage-earner  during  the  first 
half  of  the  nineteenth  century  were  largely 
political,  they  have  become,  or  are  rapidly 
becoming,  economic.  The  fight  for  political 
rights  has  been  won.  The  recognition  of  the 
poor  man  as  a  man,  with  all  a  freeman's  rights, 
has  been  accorded.  Now  he  is  turning  his 
attention  to  the  organization  of  society,  and 
inquiring  after  the  new  economic  privileges, 
to  the  winning  of  which  his  political  privi- 
leges may  minister.1 

Hence  the  present  unrest.  It  seems  to  be 
more  pervasive  and  more  generally  recognized 
than  ever.  The  literature  to  which  it  gives 
rise  covers  our  reading-tables.  It  is  one  of 
the  stock  topics  of  discussion  in  debating 
club,  trades-union  meeting,  church  convention, 
and  newspaper  editorial.  It  forms  one  of  the 
most  trusted  weapons  of  the  Opposition  in 
politics.    Upon  the  strength  of  it  the  reformer 

1  Cf .  Fairbairn,  Religion  in  History  and  Modern  Life  ;  Influ- 
ence of  the  Intellectual  Movement ;  Mrs.  Bernard  Bosanquet, 
The  Standard  of  Life  ;  Webb,  History  of  Trades  Unionism. 


THE   SOCIAL  UNREST  105 

fulminates  his  philippics  against  the  present 
order  and  his  prophecies  of  judgment  to 
come.  The  religious  sectary  appeals  to  it  as 
a  sure  sign  of  the  approaching  end  of  the 
present  dispensation.  The  economic  sectary- 
calls  upon  a  trembling  public  to  observe  that 
the  times  present  numerous  conditions  which 
duplicate  those  that  ushered  in  the  Reforma- 
tion of  the  sixteenth  century  and  the  French 
Revolution  of  the  eighteenth.  Precisely  as 
the  medical  quack  makes  gain  of  a  nervous 
public  by  calling  upon  them  through  the 
advertising  columns  of  the  newspapers  to  note 
every  irregularity  of  function,  and  to  see  in 
it  symptoms  of  grave  physical  disorder,  so  a 
multitude  of  political  and  economic  quacks 
parade  their  nostrums  before  a  society  that  is 
ill  at  ease  with  itself,  not  very  wise  and  judi- 
cial in  diagnosing  its  own  ailments,  and  a 
good  deal  disposed  to  try  experiments  upon 
its  uneasy  body. 

Yet  while  every  one  talks  about  this  problem 
none  appears  to  define  it,  for  the  excellent 
reason  that  it  proves  itself  to  be  essentially 
indefinable.  It  transcends  all  our  efforts  to 
gather  its  known  factors  into  a  soluble  equa- 
tion from  which  we  may  hope  to  derive  its 


106        THE  DYNAMIC  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

unknown.  This  may  seem  to  be  a  rather  fatu- 
ous and  disappointing  conclusion  at  which  to 
arrive.  It  is  not  really  so ;  because  this  con- 
clusion is  only  a  crude  statement  of  the  fact 
that  the  experience  of  society  is  an  experience 
incident  to  its  organic  character.  Society  is  an 
organism  instead  of  a  machine.  It  is  a  growing 
instead  of  a  completed  structure ;  moreover, 
its  growth  is  not  the  mechanical  growth  of  a 
building  whose  walls  are  rising  by  virtue  of 
what  men  bring  to  it  from  without,  but  it  is 
the  outworking  of  an  immanent  or  resident 
Force,  feeding  upon  such  material  as  it  can 
reach  and  assimilate.  Hence  the  problem  of 
society  is  as  complex  as  the  problem  of  life 
itself.  This  problem  will  never  be  solved  in 
the  sense  that  all  its  component  questions  will 
be  answered,  simply  because  each  new  genera- 
tion's experience  will  present  new  questions. 
The  hope  for  society  as  for  the  individual  lies 
in  the  discovery  of  a  way  of  life,  and  in  the 
development  of  a  Power  that  shall  guide  and 
keep  it  in  this  way.  A  great  deal  that  is  said 
about  the  ailments  of  society  is  as  amiable 
and  well  meant  as  the  prayers  of  Kim's  good 
Lama.  It  proceeds  upon  the  hypothesis  that 
society  is  bound  to  the  Wheel  of  Things,  and 


THE  SOCIAL   UNREST  107 

that  its  only  hope  lies  in  Nirvana.  That  is  the 
note  of  a  decadent  social  faith.  The  man  of 
robuster  and  more  wholesome  fibre  will  main- 
tain that  for  society  as  for  his  individual  life 
the  Wheel  of  Things  may  be  expected  to  lead 
to  some  goal  worth  attainment,  if  only  the 
right  path  and  an  adequate  force  be  at  hand. 
There  may  be  more  or  less  jolting  on  the 
road,  to  be  sure,  but  that  is  incident  to  all 
journeying. 

It  is  therefore  a  very  refreshing  sanity  that 
Professor  Peabody  brings  to  the  discussion  of 
the  "  Social  Question  "  when  he  admits  that 
there  is  no  social  problem  which  can  be  differ- 
entiated from  social  problems.1  Of  social 
problems  there  is  great  store.  Never  before 
were  so  many  people  awake  to  their  existence. 
Never  before  were  so  many  people  under  deep 
conviction  that  something  must  be  done  to 
mend  the  social  order.  "  The  social  questions 
occur  simply  because  a  very  large  number  of 
people  are  trying  in  many  different  ways  to 
do  what  is  right."  2  This  very  anxiety  to  do 
right,  however,  sometimes  blinds  our  judgment 
as  to  accomplished  progress  and  existing  con- 

1  Jesus  Christ  and  the  Social  Question,  p.  335. 

2  Id.  p.  347. 


108        THE  DYNAMIC   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

ditions.  The  quack,  to  give  a  factitious  im- 
portance to  the  need  which  his  nostrum  is  to 
meet,  proclaims  that  things  were  never  so  bad 
before ;  that  the  gulf  separating  social  classes 
was  never  so  deep  and  wide ;  that  the  rich 
are  growing  richer  while  the  poor  are  daily 
sinking  deeper  into  poverty's  Slough  of  De- 
spond ;  and  that,  if  any  one  pretends  to  care 
for  the  poor  man's  soul,  it  is  only  that  he  may 
more  conveniently  exploit  his  body. 

To  all  this  there  is  a  plain  historical  answer  to 
be  made.  It  may  not  be  true  that  social  unrest 
to-day  is  less  than  it  was  at  the  beginning  of 
last  century ;  of  this  I  shall  speak  a  little  later. 
But  it  is  undeniably  true  that  last  century 
ministered  to  the  poor  man's  chance  in  the 
world  more  purposefully  and  generously  than 
any  of  its  predecessors. 

In  the  first  place,  the  century  was  marked 
by  the  awakening  of  the  conscience  of  Chris- 
tendom to  social  conditions  and  needs.  Lord 
Shaftesbury,  whose  theological  and  political 
Toryism  was  noted  in  the  Introduction,  admi- 
rably exemplified  this  social  renaissance.  He 
said  very  little  about  a  social  problem  $  but 
he  was  keenly  alive  to  social  problems.  It  has 
grown  to  be  the  fashion  to  sneer  at  some  of  his 


THE  SOCIAL  UNREST  109 

methods  and  at  many  of  his  notions.  Yet 
the  world  could  ill  have  spared  him.  He  really 
accomplished  much,  and  he  exemplified  more. 
In  an  eminent  degree  he  stood  for  the  new 
sensitiveness  of  the  social  conscience.  In  a 
less  degree  he  illustrated  its  enlightenment. 
Conservative  though  he  was  in  politics  and 
theology,  he  could  not  rest  in  his  conserva- 
tism while  men  suffered ;  neither  could  he  rest 
in  any  mere  attitude  of  protest.  He  origi- 
nated or  identified  himself  with  many  diverse 
schemes  of  benevolence.  Some  of  them  were 
wise  and  some  were  foolish  ;  but  there  was 
usually  oil  enough  in  the  lamps  of  the  wise 
to  make  a  very  hopeful  and  enlightening 
glow  after  time  and  the  hour  had  snuffed 
out  the  flickerings  of  the  foolish.  The  secret 
of  his  success  lay  in  the  fact  that  he  was 
always  after  something  that  should  make  the 
permanent  lot  of  the  man  he  helped  more 
tolerable  and  his  chance  in  life  larger.  With 
characteristic  Tory  obstinacy  he  wrought  at 
one  of  the  greatest  tasks  of  the  century  — 
"  a  definition  of  man  that  should  take  in  the 
downmost  man."  1 

Toward  a  social  life  lived  in  the  light  of 

1  Nash,  Genesis  of  the  Social  Conscience  p.  263. 


110        THE  DYNAMIC   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

such  a  definition  conscience  is  still  forcing 
the  world.  It  is  beside  the  mark  to  object 
that  the  world  moves  with  very  unwilling 
feet  toward  this  goal.  Conscience  is  often 
obeyed  so  unwillingly  that  the  restiveness 
almost  obscures  the  fact  of  obedience.  None 
the  less,  it  is  ever  becoming  a  more  persistent 
and  dangerous  enemy  to  inhuman  and  unso- 
cial life.  It  was  in  response  to  the  demands 
of  conscience,  for  instance,  that  slavery  was 
gradually  abolished  throughout  Christendom, 
in  spite  of  what  seemed  to  be  the  assured 
impracticability  of  abolition  when  Granville 
Sharp  began  his  agitation.  So  any  one  who 
will  compare  Eden's  statistics  of  the  income 
and  expenditure  of  the  average  laborer's 
family  in  1797  with  those  of  the  "Family 
Budgets "  gathered  and  arranged  by  the 
Economic  Club  in  1896,  must  be  convinced 
of  a  change  for  the  better  in  the  poor  man's 
chance  of  livelihood. 

It  would  be  hard  to  parallel  to-day  the 
story  of  James  Strudwick  and  his  wife  Anne. 
They  lived  together  as  man  and  wife  for  over 
fifty  years.  For  more  than  sixty  years  Strud- 
wick wrought  upon  one  farm  at  a  shilling  a 
day,  continuing  his  labor  until  within  a  week 


THE  SOCIAL  UNREST  111 

of  his  death.  They  had  seven  children,  at 
least  six  of  whom  they  reared  to  become 
heads  of  families  in  their  turn.  Yet,  in  spite 
of  many  mouths  and  little  means,  they  never 
received  a  farthing  from  the  parish.  We  are 
not  to  suppose  their  lot  to  have  been  harder 
than  that  of  a  multitude  of  families  in 
England,  nor  than  that  of  some  in  America, 
for  they  possessed  rather  an  unusual  capital 
of  character.  Some  of  the  miners  of  their 
day  lived  in  practical  serfhood,  being  trans- 
ferable with  the  collieries  or  salt  deposits  in 
which  they  worked.  There  were  then  no 
legal  safeguards  thrown  about  child  labor, 
and  early  in  the  century  children  were  drafted 
from  the  workhouses  and  asylums  of  the 
great  towns  for  a  service  in  the  mills  of  the 
north  that  was  a  virtual  slavery.  Indeed,  it 
was  not  until  1819  that  Sir  Robert  Peel  suc- 
ceeded in  passing  a  bill  which  provided  that 
no  child  under  nine  should  be  employed  in 
a  cotton  factory,  and  no  young  person  under 
sixteen  be  allowed  to  work  more  than  twelve 
hours  a  day  exclusive  of  meals.1 

In  the  United  States  the  unsuccessful  at- 

1  Cf.    Mrs.    Bernard  Bosanquet,    The  Standard  of  Life, 
especially  the  chapter,  "  A  Hundred  Years  Ago." 


112        THE  DYNAMIC   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

tempt  of  artisans  in  1791  to  procure  a  shorter 
day  —  their  daily  work  then  extending  often 
through  thirteen  hours  —  is  significant,  not 
only  of  their  rightful  discontent  with  the  con- 
ditions under  which  they  worked,  but  of  the 
almost  entire  lack  of  sympathy  on  the  part  of 
the  general  public  with  their  attempts  at  bet- 
terment. In  1825,  again  we  find  the  ordinary 
wages  of  labor  astonishingly  low,  while  the 
attempts  at  organization  were  still  treated  by 
the  public  with  indifference,  or  with  the  cruel 
prejudice  which  so  often  springs  from  an  un- 
defined fear.1 

In  the  early  winter  of  1902,  the  writer  had 
occasion  to  investigate  the  circumstances  of 
a  laborer's  family  in  a  New  England  town. 
Both  man  and  wife  were  commonly  regarded 
as  of  less  than  ordinary  intellectual  capacity ; 
both  were  accounted  to  be  victims  of  bad  en- 
vironment and  worse  heredity.     Neither  had 

1  For  a  more  detailed  discussion  of  some  phases  of  this 
question  see  a  series  of  articles  by  the  Author,  entitled  "  A 
Century's  Influence  :  (1)  Upon  the  Conscience  of  Christen- 
dom ;  (2)  Upon  the  Poor  Man's  Chance  of  Livelihood  ; 
(3)  Upon  the  Lot  of  the  Dependent  Classes  ;  (4)  Upon  the 
Worth  of  Human  Life  ;  (5)  Upon  the  Church's  Sense  of 
Responsibility  ; "  published  in  The  Congregationalist  and 
Christian  World,  Boston,  February-April,  1901. 


THE   SOCIAL   UNREST  113 

seemed  to  profit  much  by  such  educational 
opportunities  as  had  offered  themselves.  It 
would  be  unfair  to  class  them  as  criminals, 
although  it  should  be  noted  that  the  woman 
had  been  in  jail  for  street-brawling.  As  com- 
pared with  the  Strudwicks,  whose  case  is  cited 
by  Sir  Frederick  Eden,  they  were  distinctly 
ill  provided  with  the  capital  of  character. 
Yet  on  inquiry  of  the  man's  superintendent,  it 
was  found  that  he  had  regular  employment 
and  was  counted  a  dependable  workman.  As 
the  superintendent  spoke,  he  turned  to  a  pile 
of  time-cards  near  by  and  looked  up  the 
amount  of  wages  for  November  and  December 

—  the  two  months  immediately  preceding  the 
investigation.  The  record  showed  $62  earned 
in  November  and  $64  in  December,  and  it  was 
stated  that  these  months  were  in  no  way  ex- 
ceptional. It  appeared  further  that  the  woman 
added  to  the  family  resources  by  going  out 
more  or  less  to  service.  After  making  every 
allowance  for  the  fact  that  the  autumn  pf  1901 
was  a  time  of  abundant  work  and  good  wages 

—  as  well  as  of  high  prices  for  all  articles  of 
household  consumption  —  no  fair-minded  man 
can  resist  the  force  of  the  contrast  between 
this  family's  lot  and  that  of  the  Strudwicks. 


114        THE  DYNAMIC  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

There  was  probably  no  opportunity  in  tbe 
world  at  the  close  of  the  eighteenth  century 
for  a  man  of  this  laborer's  capacity  and  skill 
to  make  a  living  that  would  at  all  correspond 
with  the  return  that  his  ordinary  expenditure 
of  labor  brought  him  in  the  first  year  of  the 
twentieth  century. 

If,  turning  from  the  case  of  the  poor  man's 
chance  of  livelihood,  we  direct  our  attention  to 
the  lot  of  the  dependent  classes — the  insane, 
the  criminal,  and  those  whose  poverty  compels 
them  to  rely  in  some  degree  upon  corporate 
relief  —  we  find  a  contrast  between  the  begin- 
ning and  end  of  the  nineteenth  century  that  is 
quite  as  notable.  The  famous  articles  on  Insan- 
ity and  Mad-houses  in  the  "  Edinburgh  "  and 
"  Quarterly  "  Reviews  of  1815,  the  former 
written  by  Sydney  Smith,  vividly  portray  the 
entire  lack  of  system  in  some  asylums  and  the 
systematic  brutality  in  others.  It  was  not 
until  1839  that  John  Conolly  came  to  Han- 
well  and  banished  the  strait  waistcoat,  nor 
until  the  early  '40' s  that  the  agitation  which 
resulted  in  more  humane  and  rational  care  of 
the  insane  began  in  New  England.  A  writer 
in  the  "North  American  Review"  of  January, 
1843,  says  that  within  three  months  he  had 


THE   SOCIAL  UNREST  115 

found  one  man  near  Boston  confined  in  a 
cage  about  six  feet  square  in  a  woodshed 
open  to  the  public  road.  In  the  next  town  he 
found  an  unlighted  shed,  twelve  by  eight  feet 
in  size,  connected  with  the  almshouse,  and  in 
it  a  middle-aged  man,  nude  and  stark  mad. 
At  the  same  period  the  cage  for  the  insane  was 
no  very  extraordinary  appurtenance  to  a  New 
Hampshire  farmhouse.  In  contrast  with  all 
this,  there  are  few  more  striking  sights  in  New 
England  to-day  than  the  great  State  Hospitals 
where  the  insane  are  treated,  if  need  be  at  the 
public  expense,  with  the  best  appliances  that 
modern  science  has  been  able  to  suggest. 

The  trend  of  last  century's  endeavor  to  deal 
with  crime  and  the  criminal  was  in  this  same 
direction  of  a  clearer  recognition  of  his  rights 
and  needs  as  a  man.  Some  foolish  experiments 
were  tried,  some  failures  were  made,  and  the 
problem  as  a  whole  was  by  no  means  solved. 
But  no  intelligent  man  doubts  that  the  abo- 
lition  of  imprisonment  for  debt  —  in  1829 
no  less  than  three  thousand  persons  are  esti- 
mated to  have  been  in  confinement  in  Massa- 
chusetts alone  for  that  cause  —  and  the  results 
of  the  work  of  reformers  like  Fowell  Buxton, 
Alexander  Maconochie,  and  Sir  Walter  Crof- 


116        THE  DYNAMIC   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

ton  marked  a  distinct  advance  toward  the  an- 
swer of  a  most  intricate  and  difficult  question. 

There  has  been  similar  progress  in  the  esti- 
mate placed  by  society  upon  the  worth  of 
human  life.  When,  in  1810,  Sir  Samuel  Ro- 
milly  introduced  into  Parliament  a  bill  abol- 
ishing the  death  penalty  for  shop-lifting,  he 
was  opposed  and  his  bill  defeated  on  the 
ground  that  only  two  years  before  he  had 
been  instrumental  in  passing  a  bill  abolishing 
the  death  penalty  for  picking  pockets,  and 
there  was  no  telling  where  the  thing  might 
end.  One  young  man  said  to  him  frankly, 
"  I  am  against  your  bill ;  I  am  for  hanging 
all."  How  well  he  expressed  a  common  feel- 
ing in  society  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  when 
the  nineteenth  century  came  in,  more  than  two 
hundred  offenses  were  punishable  with  death 
in  England. 

It  is  often  insinuated  that  the  tendency  of 
philosophy  during  the  nineteenth  century  has 
been  to  lend  us 

"  Evil  dreams; 
So  careful  of  the  type  she  seems, 
So  careless  of  the  single  life." 

Yet  in  point  of  fact,  the  individual  life  was 
never  held  to  be  so  precious  in  society's  eyes 


THE   SOCIAL   UNREST  117 

before.  This  is  due  partly  to  a  more  sensitive 
humanitarianism,  and  a  keener  feeling  that  it 
is  society's  business  to  safeguard  a  man's  right 
to  himself.  The  general  revision  of  penal 
codes,  the  elaborate  regulation  of  traffic  by 
sea  and  land,  as  evidenced  by  such  legislation 
as  that  advocated  by  the  late  Samuel  Plimsoll, 
the  Red  Cross  movement  originating  in  M. 
Dunant's  experiences  upon  the  field  of  Sol- 
f  erino,  and  the  vast  pains  and  expense  to  which 
the  United  States  goes  to  maintain  its  elabo- 
rate and  efficient  Life  Saving  Service,  all  indi- 
cate a  new  susceptibility  of  society  to  the  fate 
of  the  individual.  Science  and  philosophy 
have  done  much,  also,  to  emphasize  society's 
solidarity.  However  distasteful  Scripture  may 
be  to  our  ears,  the  last  century's  experience 
has  forced  us  to  believe  as  never  before  that 
we  are  members  one  of  another.  Tyranny  in 
China  or  Turkey  in  some  degree  disturbs  and 
oppresses  Christendom.  Unsanitary  condi- 
tions in  Cuban  ports  threaten  the  health  and 
prosperity  of  the  United  States.  Now  and 
then  signs  appear  that  some  glimmerings 
of  the  truth  that  no  nation  can  live  to  itself 
commercially  are  penetrating  the  thick  dark- 
ness   of    our    legislative    halls.     The    social 


118        THE   DYNAMIC   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

and  religious  missionary  is  more  in  evidence 
than  ever  before  both  at  home  and  abroad  — 
and  the  missionary,  whether  he  represent  a 
church,  college,  social  settlement,  or  trades 
union,  is  always  a  sign  of  society's  solidarity. 
It  would  be,  then,  both  dishonest  and  idle 
to  deny  the  advance  of  the  average  individual 
during  the  last  century.  He  has  gained  in 
material  possessions,  and  in  opportunity  and 
range  of  life.  If  society's  so-called  problem 
could  be  expressed  in  terms  of  the  standard 
of  life  of  a  century  ago,  there  might  be  some 
hope  of  its  solution.  But  the  standard  of  life 
is  an  eternal  variable.  Man  is  the  one  un- 
satisfied creature,  and  the  horizon  of  his  ambi- 
tion increases  as  the  square  of  the  radius  of  his 
opportunity.  Instead  of  comparing  his  to-day 
with  his  yesterday,  he  is  prone  to  measure  it  by 
yesterday's  dream  for  to-day.  As  a  contempo- 
rary poet  puts  it,  he  is  like  a  man  who,  — 

"  dwelling  in  some  smoke-dimmed  town 
In  a  brief  pause  in  labour's  sullen  wheel,  — 

'Scaped  from  the  street's  dead  dust  and  factory's  frown,  — 
In  stainless  daylight  saw  the  pure  seas  roll, 

Saw  mountains  pillaring  the  pefect  sky  ; 
Then  journeyed  home,  to  carry  in  his  soul 

The  torment  of  the  difference  till  he  die."  1 

1  W.  Watson,  quoted  in  Spectator,  November  23,  1901, 
p.  800. 


THE  SOCIAL   UNREST  119 

It  is  in  this  "  torment  of  the  difference  "  that 
the  present  social  unrest  largely  lies.  The 
hungry  man  is  by  no  means  the  most  restless 
man  to-day.  The  agitator  is  not  generally  a 
man  who  is  in  dire  and  immediate  need.  He 
is  the  man  who  is  very  conscious  of  "  the  dif- 
ference." This  consciousness  may  simply  rouse 
him  to  envy,  malice,  and  all  uncharitableness. 
It  may  appeal  to  his  sense  of  justice.  It  may 
open  his  eyes  to  certain  definite  and  prac- 
ticable steps  that  can  be  taken  toward  the 
amelioration  of  present  faulty  conditions.  In 
the  first  case  he  becomes  a  professional  agi- 
tator, whose  bitterness  discounts  his  influence. 
In  the  second  he  may  become  one  of  those 
voices  in  the  wilderness  which  haunt  the  souls 
of  a  generation  of  men  —  and  which  generally 
prove  to  be  the  forerunners  of  some  gospel. 
In  the  third  he  makes  a  mark,  and  leaves  a 
name  as  a  practical  reformer.  He  does  not 
solve  the  Social  Problem ;  but  he  rearranges 
its  factors.  He  does  not  assuage  the  unrest ; 
but  he  soothes  the  immediate  pain  ;  he  satisfies 
the  day's  hunger. 

The  unrest  abides.  It  signifies  a  certain 
inadequacy  of  human  experience  to  meet  the 
desire  of  the  soul.    It  portends  the  certainty 


120        THE  DYNAMIC  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

of  further  change.  It  bespeaks  the  need  of 
leadership.  But  more  clearly  than  anything 
else,  it  proclaims  the  fact  that  society  is  not  a 
machine,  but  an  organism.1  Its  problems  are 
the  problems  of  life,  not  of  mechanics.  Its 
future  depends  not  upon  a  formula,  but  upon 
an  immanent  force  daily  adapting  environment 
to  purpose  —  a  force  that  shall  prove  its  per- 
manent adequacy  to  changed  and  changing 
conditions.  The  answer  to  society's  ever  re- 
curring questions  must  be  made  not  by  the 
ipse  dixit  of  authority,  nor  in  terms  of  a 
philosophical,  economic,  or  theological  sys- 
tem, but  in  the  words  of  a  living  and  present 
Power. 

1  Cf.  Herbert  Spencer,  The  Dynamic  Element  in  Life,  a 
chapter  added  to  the  revised  edition  of  the  Principles  of 
Biology  in  1898  ;  and  Mr.  A.  S.  Pringle-Pattison's  comment 
upon  it  in  the  Quarterly  Review,  July,  1904,  p.  2G3. 


VI 

THE   THESIS 

In  the  preceding  chapters  an  endeavor  has 
been  made  to  state  a  condition.  We  have 
seen  how  slow  the  world  has  been  to  admit 
the  possibility  of  growth  in  theology.  Theo- 
logians of  the  ultra-conservative  type,  though 
insisting  upon  the  scientific  character  of  the- 
ology, have  seemed  to  regard  it  as  the  im- 
movable bed-rock  upon  which  all  scientific 
structure  must  be  reared.  Investigators  might 
mine  into  it ;  they  might  quarry  its  material 
for  various  purposes  of  building  ;  but  the 
stuff  itself  was  the  deposit  of  an  age  of  reve- 
lation long-  since  closed.  The  contemners  of 
theology  —  and  they  have  been  many  during 
the  last  half  century  —  have  also  denied  the 
possibility  of  theological  development  because 
they  have  chosen  to  regard  theology  as  mori- 
bund ;  as  destined  to  pass  away ;  as  no  longer 
worthy  the  attention  of  the  man  of  genuinely 
scientific    habit.     Some  of  them  have   gone 


122        THE  DYNAMIC   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

farther,  and  maintained  that  religion  was  as 
moribund  as  theology  ;  that  it  marked  a  mere 
passing  phase  in  human  development,  and 
that  the  man  of  the  present  was  outgrowing 
it  as  certainly  as  the  man  of  a  remote  past 
outgrew  the  need  and  use  of  an  arboreal 
habitat.  The  man  of  the  present  appears, 
however,  to  be  impatient  of  this  programme. 
Religion  is  not  so  easily  sloughed  off.  If  he 
rid  himself  of  the  faith  that  brings  peace,  he 
is  very  likely  to  find  himself  in  the  clutches 
of  the  superstition  that  brings  fear. 

Hence  have  followed  the  rather  tantalizing 
popular  conditions  sketched  in  Chapters  III. 
and  IV.  Men  have  found  themselves  unable 
to  abandon  theological  investigation  and  re- 
ligious observance  without  danger  of  surren- 
dering their  highest  prerogatives.  They  have 
found  themselves  almost  equally  unable  to 
coordinate  their  fragmentary  but  precious 
progress  in  these  realms  into  a  satisfying 
experience.  Meanwhile  their  embarrassment 
has  been  accentuated  by  analogous  condi- 
tions in  society  (Chapter  V.),  where  unde- 
niable political  and  material  progress  finds  its 
footsteps  dogged  by  persistent  discontent. 

Religious  experience  has  continued  in  spite 


THE  THESIS  123 

of  the  fond  unwisdom  of  the  devout  and  the 
bitter  contempt  of  the  scornful.  It  has  mul- 
tiplied the  material  of  theology.  Theology, 
however,  has  been  distrustful  of  her  power 
to  use  the  material.  Some  few  theological 
masons  were  at  hand  ;  but  no  architect  has 
appeared.  Indeed,  it  is  by  no  means  certain 
that  he  is  wanted,  since  the  true  architect  is 
something  of  a  prophet,  and  likely  therefore  to 
be  a  disturber  of  systems  and  a  deviser  of  new 
types  that  sometimes  refuse  to  harmonize  with 
those  to  which  we  have  become  accustomed. 
A  young  clergyman  spoke  to  me  with  enthu- 
siasm some  years  ago  of  the  church  in  which 
he  had  just  begun  to  preach.    "  It  was  a  gem 

of  a  church ;  the  exact  reproduction  of ," 

and  he  named  a  country  church  in  another 
land  and  belonging  to  a  long  bygone  century. 
All  the  archaeologist  and  historian  in  his  hearer 
went  out  to  meet  the  young  rector's  enthusi- 
asm, but  the  question  would  arise  whether  a 
church  in  which  service  to  God  and  man  was 
to  be  rendered  to-day  ought  to  be  regarded 
quite  so  exclusively  as  an  article  of  vertu. 
Its  peculiar  charm  seemed  to  consist  not  in 
its  adaptation  to  present  need  so  much  as 
in  its  suggestion  of  a  former  adaptation  to 


124        THE   DYNAMIC   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

the  need  of  another  day.  It  is  true  that  the 
need  is  eternal;  but  it  is  equally  true  that 
our  attempts  to  meet  it  to-day,  if  they  are  to 
have  any  measure  of  success,  must  be  more 
than  copies. 

The  inadequacy  of  any  formal  system  to 
withstand  the  encroachments  of  time  is  be- 
coming ever  more  evident.  We  are  reminded 
of  it  by  the  periodic  embarrassment  of  in- 
stitutions endowed  and  chartered  to  teach 
certain  doctrines.  The  trustees  of  lecture 
foundations  conditioned  upon  the  promulga- 
tion of  once  well-established  views,  or  even 
upon  the  treatment  of  specified  themes,  are 
sometimes  driven  to  strange  devices  to  obtain 
competent  lecturers  and  at  the  same  time 
escape  misappropriation  of  funds.  The  even- 
tual impotence  of  the  dead  hand  has  been 
among  the  hardest  of  lessons  for  the  world 
to  learn.  Pretty  distinct  glimpses  of  it  have 
reached  the  eyes  of  to-day,  however.  As  a 
result,  the  attitude  of  the  world  is  half  fear- 
ful and  half  expectant.  Men  are  conscious  of 
transition.  Some,  as  has  been  already  inti- 
mated, look  to  see  both  theology  and  religion 
go  by  the  board  altogether.  Others  look  for 
the  advent  of  a  new  system-builder  —  some 


THE  THESIS  125 

philosophical  or  theological  architect,  who 
shall  devise  a  more  lasting  structure  than 
those  which  time  and  the  hour  have  under- 
mined. The  question  which  it  is  the  purpose 
of  this  chapter  to  raise  is  whether  the  day  of 
the  system,  philosophical  or  theological,  as  a 
completed  structure  has  not  gone  forever,  and 
whether  we  are  not  in  a  position  to  welcome 
something  better  and  more  vital  as  its  substi- 
tute. 

In  the  realm  of  physical  science  no  one 
would  dare  any  longer  to  proclaim  himself  the 
professor  of  a  system  which  should  attempt 
to  compass  the  sum  total  of  knowledge  in 
such  fashion  as  to  preclude  investigation  in 
any  direction  or  the  influx  of  new  light  at  any 
point.  We  have  passed  from  a  mechanical 
into  a  vital  method  in  our  "  secular  "  learning. 
To  effect  such  a  transition  in  theology  would 
once  have  seemed  like  a  going  over  to  the  side 
of  the  agnostic.  Yet  the  transition  has  been 
made  by  a  multitude  of  thoughtful  men,  for  all 
that.  They  have  seen  that  the  agnostic  had 
something  to  teach  them.  He  has  generally 
been  bumptious,  often  ill-bred,  and  still  more 
often  perhaps  dishonest,  in  so  far  as  he  rejoiced 
to  misrepresent  his  opponent's  views.    He  has 


126        THE  DYNAMIC   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

frequently  been  dogmatic  in  his  agnosticism, 
and  so  denied  himself.  Nevertheless,  he  has 
brought  his  message  to  the  world.  It  was 
very  largely  a  message  of  protest,  and  there- 
fore partial  and  temporary,  but  it  needed  to 
be  proclaimed.  With  it  he  was  forever  cudgel- 
ing dogma ;  and  dogma  undoubtedly  deserved 
cudgeling.  The  agnostic's  mistake  has  gener- 
ally lain  in  the  fact  that  the  play  of  his  cudgel 
has  been  directed  to  compassing  dogma's  death 
instead  of  her  humiliation.  The  sources  of  her 
life  were  beyond  his  reach.  The  trappings  of 
her  pride  were  not,  and  she  was  bound  to  prove 
a  more  effective  handmaid  to  the  truth  for  hav- 
ing them  stripped  off  ;  since  the  dogma,  which 
when  enthroned  has  so  often  proved  to  be  a 
tyrant  over  the  household  of  faith,  is  nothing 
after  all  but  the  hypothesis,  which,  sitting  in 
the  place  of  a  servant,  has  shown  herself  emi- 
nently fitted  to  the  household's  needs. 

The  ground  of  science  is  not  merely  the 
principle  of  the  Continuity  of  Nature.  It 
consists  rather  in  an  idea  of  nature  itself. 
It  is  a  faith,  which  experience  seems  to  fit, 
that  nature  is  self  -consistent ;  and  that  the 
Dynamic  of  Nature  —  the  Force  which  mani- 


THE  THESIS  127 

fests  itself  in  all  nature's  processes  —  is 
rational,  and  so  far  forth  personal.  In  the 
light  of  this  faith  the  investigator  proceeds 
with  observation  and  experiment.  He  states 
and  tests  his  hypothesis  in  perfect  assurance 
that  the  processes  of  nature  will  verify  and 
indorse  some  hypothesis  —  either  this  or  one 
toward  which  the  mistakes  in  this  will  direct 
him.  He  is  by  no  means  disheartened  because 
he  finds  post  hoc  sometimes  masquerading 
in  the  garb  of  propter  hoc.  The  fact  that 
the  disguise  so  often  succeeds  for  a  time  is 
but  an  indirect  testimony  to  the  faith  men 
have  and  ought  to  have  in  a  rationally  or- 
dered universe.  They  are  so  sure  that  ade- 
quate cause  exists  for  every  event  that  it  is 
small  wonder  that  they  should  be  sometimes 
led  astray  by  the  sanguine  and  premature 
cry,  "  Lo,  here  !  "  or  "  Lo,  there  !  "  This  faith, 
even  when  building  upon  an  inadequate 
hypothesis,  is  never  an  object  of  contempt  to 
the  really  scientific  man.  It  is  always  more 
rational  than  the  attitude  of  the  unbeliever 
in  nature's  steadfastness  and  continuity  of 
process. 

The  result  of  the  great  scientific  renais- 
sance since  Bacon's  day  has  therefore  been 


128        THE  DYNAMIC   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

twofold.  The  inductive  method  substantiated 
man's  faith  in  the  rational  character  of  the 
Power  which  underlies  and  expresses  itself  in 
the  course  of  nature.  It  has,  on  the  other 
hand,  warned  us  against  too  implicit  faith  in 
any  so-called  system  which  claims  to  sum  up 
and  comprehend  nature.  The  arc  of  adequate 
scientific  investigation  is  not  the  arc  of  a  cir- 
cle whose  circumference  we  can  describe  and 
whose  content  we  can  measure.  It  is  rather 
the  arc  of  a  parabola,  whose  law  we  may  de- 
fine, but  whose  extent  is  beyond  us,  and 
whose  circuit  is  and  must  always  remain  open. 
Only  at  infinity  is  the  axis  of  experience  fully 
competent  to  determine  the  direction  of  the 
line  of  universal  truth  which  there  runs 
parallel  to  it. 

So  with  theology  and  the  scientific  ap- 
proach to  it  of  recent  years.  The  content 
of  revelation  is  not  complete.  The  system 
which  describes  and  deals  with  it  is  and 
must  remain  partial.  There  must  be  room 
for  growth,  and  glad  expectation  of  it.  The 
real  things  to  be  sought  are  as  clear  concep- 
tions as  possible  of  the  source,  the  nature, 
and  the  working  method  of  this  principle  of 
growth.    The  discovery  of  these  things  will 


THE  THESIS  129 

meet  the  desire  of  a  day  eager  for  a  recon- 
struction of  systems  better  than  anything  else 
can  do.  Such  discovery  will  not  always  ful- 
fill the  day's  immediate  expectation ;  but  it 
will  do  something  better  by  demonstrating 
the  fact  that  the  expectation  of  a  completed 
system  which  shall  withstand  the  wear  and 
tear  of  time  is  so  meagre  as  to  be  unworthy. 
The  thing  which  the  world  has  a  right  to 
expect  is  the  vision  of  a  process  and  the  intro- 
duction to  a  principle  whose  scope  and  power 
shall  be  limitless.  This  is  not  to  deny  the 
validity  and  use  of  systems.  It  is  simply 
to  impugn  the  perpetuity  of  any  one  system. 
A  system  of  theology  or  philosophy  is  like 
a  deciduous  tree.  It  has  its  seasons  of  um- 
brageous growth,  when  it  impresses  every 
on-looker  by  its  rich  vitality.  To  this  suc- 
ceeds the  period  when  the  signs  of  growth 
disappear,  and  with  the  clearer  definition  of 
trunk,  branch,  and  twig  it  takes  on  a  look  of 
wintry  permanence.  Another  season  of  assimi- 
lation of  new  experience  with  its  appeal  to 
the  imagination  comes,  to  be  followed  by  a 
second  period  of  arrested  development  and 
exacter  definition,  until  at  last  the  great  cli- 
macteric of  life  is  reached  and  passed.    The 


130        THE  DYNAMIC  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

system,  like  the  tree,  may  yet  endure  for  gen- 
erations as  a  monument  of  vast  interest  and 
usefulness.  Its  great  significance  has  now  be- 
come historical.  It  belongs  to  the  past  rather 
than  to  the  future.  The  violence  of  man  or 
the  slow  process  of  decay  finally  overthrows 
it,  and  the  places  which  knew  it  know  it  no 
more  forever.  As  a  systematic  arrangement 
of  material  appealing  to  human  attention  and 
sympathy,  the  thing  is  done ;  but  the  vital 
principle  which  gave  this  arrangement  a  real 
though  temporary  validity  is  still  extant,  al- 
ready arraying  itself  in  new  forms,  and  pre- 
paring to  render  a  further  service. 

It  is  in  such  a  sense  as  this  that  we  must 
accept  systems  of  theology  or  philosophy. 
Not  one  of  them  that  ever  succeeded  in  con- 
centrating the  serious  attention  of  any  consid- 
erable body  of  thoughtful  men  was  probably 
wholly  false.  Not  one,  merely  as  a  system, 
has  ever  shown  itself  to  be  completely  and 
permanently  valid.  The  time  has  come  when 
we  should  recognize  this  fact  with  glad  resig- 
nation. We  shall  not  be  the  poorer  for  it,  if 
it  teach  us  that  the  secret  of  permanence  in 
philosophy  and  theology  alike  lies  in  a  prin- 
ciple, not  in  a  system.    As  the  secret  of  adap- 


THE   THESIS  131 

tation  to  a  changing  environment  is  the  secret 
of  the  life  of  a  man ;  or  as  the  principle  of 
civic  continuance  is  to  be  found  in  the  intel- 
ligent exercise  of  human  liberty ;  so  the  secret 
of  a  rational  theology  and  a  practical  religion 
lies  in  the  possession  of  a  principle  of  life, 
resident  in  the  world  and  especially  in  man ; 
rational  in  its  ways  and  means  of  working ; 
and  purposeful,  to  this  extent,  at  least,  that 
its  outlook  is  manifestly,  even  though  some- 
times mysteriously,  upon  the  future. 

Every  candid  and  intelligent  student  of  the 
history  of  religion  and  of  physical  science 
must  be  struck,  I  think,  with  the  aversion 
which  men  have  shown  to  a  belief  in  non-resi- 
dent causes.  Their  theory  of  life  and  change 
has  always  tended  to  ground  itself  upon  a 
resident  principle.  There  is  profound  signifi- 
cance in  the  readiness  of  primitive  peoples  to 
believe  in  spirit-possession.  Even  the  supersti- 
tion that  leads  such  numbers  in  the  present 
day  to  have  recourse  to  the  wizard  and  clair- 
voyant, or  to  sit  in  gaping  wonder  while  a 
so-called  medium  summons  the  spirits  of  the 
great  departed  to  write  bad  poetry  upon  dirty 
slates,  or  return  silly  answers  to  fatuous  ques- 
tions, is  not  without  its  meaning.     It  all  goes 


132        THE   DYNAMIC   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

to  show  how  ineradicable  is  the  tendency  of 
the  human  mind  to  find  the  invisible  and  in- 
definable Cause  of  things  near  at  hand  instead 
of  far  away.  Man  is  naturally  a  believer  in 
resident  causes,  and,  at  the  same  time,  he  is  a 
believer  in  a  transcendent  Cause.  The  appar- 
ent antinomy  may  plague  him,  but  it  persists. 
The  "  Big  Man  "  about  whom  the  Fuegians 
spoke  to  the  inquirers  of  H.  M.  S.  Beagle, 
the  "  Baiame  "  or  "  Mysterious  Chief  "  of  the 
Australians,1  as  well  as  the  "  Great  Spirit "  of 
the  North  American  Indians,  are  all  exceed- 
ingly anthropomorphic ;  but  they  are  also  tran- 
scendent. Their  deity  removes  them  from  im- 
mediate and  tangible  contact  with  men,  but 
not  altogether  from  some  mysterious  and  im- 
mediate connection  with  the  causes  of  events. 
Their  sons,  or  agents,  or  the  spirits  hostile  to 
them  and  with  which  they  are  at  war,  are 
resident  on  earth,  and  through  their  interven- 
tion good  or  ill  comes  to  pass.2  The  Chinese 
warping  a  house-boat  through  the  primitive 
lock  on  one  of  his  canals  divides  his  working 
forces  into    two  companies.     One    hauls  the 

1  Cf.  Spencer  and  Gillen,  Native  Tribes  of  Australia,  chap- 
ter xviii. 

2  "  Anthropology  —  A  Science  ?  "   Quarterly  Review,  Jan- 
uary, 1902. 


THE  THESIS  133 

boat,  the  other  beats  tom-toms  to  fend  off 
the  activity  of  the  malignant  spirits  resident 
in  the  neighborhood,  whose  presence  would 
invite  disaster.  The  Indian  is  keen  to  make 
distinction  between  his  good  and  bad  medi- 
cine. The  negro,  and  not  infrequently  the 
white  man,  cherishes  his  rabbit-foot.  The 
intelligent,  and  very  likely  pious,  inhabitant 
of  civilized  communities  likes  better  to  see  the 
new  moon  over  the  right  than  the  left  shoul- 
der. He  laughs  at  what  he  probably  consid- 
ers the  fossil  footprint  of  an  extinct  supersti- 
tion. Yet  he  bears  witness,  in  company  with 
his  sign-fearing  and  magic-practicing  brother, 
to  the  tendency  which  all  men  feel  to  account 
for  events  upon  the  ground  of  resident  causes. 
At  the  other  end  of  the  scale,  the  philo- 
sopher works  out  his  theory  of  development. 
Whether  he  believe  in  a  transcendent  First 
Cause  or  not,  he  founds  his  theory  immedi- 
ately upon  immanent  or  resident  causes.  He 
is  doubtless  following  a  strictly  scientific 
method.  Yet  the  impulse  behind  the  method 
is  the  same  that  actuated  the  African  in  de- 
veloping his  theory  of  magic  ;  or  the  my- 
cologist in  ascribing  a  personal  resident  to 
each  constellation,  grove,  and  mountain;  or 


134        THE   DYNAMIC   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

the  Lystran  leaders,  crying  in  view  of  an  un- 
explained and  startling  event,  "  The  gods  are 
come  down  to  us  in  the  likeness  of  men." 

When  philosophy  undertakes  to  organize 
and  correlate  the  diverse  experience  of  men, 
the  relation  between  the  magic-monger  and 
the  scientist  appears.  The  fact  has  to  be 
recognized  that  the  human  mind  can  reason 
only  upon  the  basis  of  immanent  and  resident 
causes.  It  also  becomes  evident  that  the  de- 
veloped human  mind  demands  the  unification 
of  these  causes  and  their  assignment  to  a  com- 
mon source.  Whether  we  call  that  source 
"  God,"  or  the  "  Father  of  the  Gods,"  or  a 
"Big  Man,"  or  a  "Cosmic  Force,"  the  sig- 
nificant inclination  to  use  the  capital  initial 
recurs.  The  intelligent  demand  for  a  recog- 
nition of  this  Ultimate  Cause,  immanent  in 
all  subordinate  causes  and  resident  in  all 
events,  will  eventually  prove,  I  believe,  to  be 
irresistible. 

The  comparatively  recent  doctrine  of  de- 
velopment known  as  Evolution  has  not  only 
emphasized  the  necessity  and  suggested  the 
method  of  unifying  our  knowledge  in  the 
realm  of  physical  science,  but  it  has  also  gone 
on  to  demand  a  similar  unification  of  both 


THE  THESIS  135 

theory  and  experience  in  sociology,  psycho- 
logy, ethics,  and  religion.  One  of  its  most 
important  services  has  been  rendered  by  its 
claim  that  no  realm  of  human  thought  is 
foreign  to  its  principle,  and  that  its  method 
will  upon  investigation  prove  to  be  universal. 
In  view  of  the  fact  that  Evolution  won  its 
spurs  and  demonstrated  its  power  in  the  do- 
main of  physical  science,  it  was  scarcely  to  be 
wondered  at  that  ethics  and  theology  should 
have  looked  askance  at  it  and  been  slow  to 
acknowledge  its  validity  for  them.  They 
might  readily  have  been  more  hospitable  to 
it,  however,  had  their  ears  been  attentive  to 
the  teaching  of  their  own  prophets,  for  Kant, 
Goethe,  and  Tennyson  had  all  more  or  less 
explicitly  forecast  its  coming.  As  has  hap- 
pened before  in  great  crises  of  history,  how- 
ever, the  foretold  and  hoped-for  event,  when 
it  came,  made  its  advent  in  so  unexpected  a 
quarter,  and  voiced  its  truth  in  such  startling 
and  unwelcome  words,  that  those  who  should 
have  been  most  ready  to  welcome  it  proved 
to  be  its  bitterest  opponents.  The  "Origin 
of  Species"  seemed  to  contradict  all  current 
notions  of  creation,  and  the  "  Descent  of 
Man  "  threatened  to  rob  humanity,  not  merely 


136        THE  DYNAMIC   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

of  the  doctrine  of  Divine  Sonship,  but  even 
of  the  poor  distinction  of  total  depravity. 
Man  was  to  be  no  longer  great  even  as  a  sin- 
ner, but  must  be  regarded  simply  as  the  last  of 
the  beasts  that  perish.  This  was  the  fear  that 
men  had  of  Evolution,  with  its  demand  for 
the  reorganization  of  every  realm  of  know- 
ledge in  accordance  with  its  new  principle ; 
and  the  claim  of  some  of  the  earlier  evolution- 
ists, who  were  scarcely  more  clairvoyant  than 
their  opponents,  went  far  to  justify  the  fear. 
They  appeared  to  imply,  even  if  they  did  not 
explicitly  claim,  that  the  resident  causes  to 
which  development  was  due  were  resident  in 
events  in  such  a  sense  that  they  might  be  con- 
sidered to  be  independent  of,  and,  possibly, 
even  unrelated  to,  any  Ultimate  Cause  or  Rea- 
son. More  than  this,  the  great  doctrine  of 
Natural  Selection  and  the  Survival  of  the  Fit- 
test appeared  to  imply  that  all  rational  life 
must  of  necessity  be  selfish ;  and  that  success 
in  the  strife  after  food,  shelter,  and  such  train- 
ing of  faculty  as  might  enable  a  man  to  dis- 
tance his  fellow  at  whatever  cost  to  the  latter 
was  the  true  object  of  life's  best  ambition. 
They  seemed  to  imply  further  that  life  was  ex- 
clusively a  thing  of  the  present ;  that  the  past, 


THE  THESIS  137 

though  the  ladder  by  which  man  had  climbed, 
might  be  safely  kicked  away  when  he  had 
made  good  his  foothold  on  the  plane  of 
to-day  ;  and  that  the  future  (meaning  by  that 
word  the  period  beyond  immediate  experience 
in  this  life)  was  to  be  disregarded  entirely, 
except  so  far  as  the  contemplation  of  it  might 
serve  to  make  him  resourceful  in  delaying  its 
advent  to  the  latest  possible  moment. 

In  point  of  fact,  however,  during  all  this 
time  Evolution  was  really  elucidating  two 
principles,  which,  could  they  have  been  fore- 
seen, might  very  well  have  mitigated,  if  they 
did  not  end,  this  strife.  The  first  of  these 
was  that  the  attitude  of  any  creature  toward 
the  future  is  of  vast  moment  in  determining 
his  hold  upon  the  present  and  his  rank  in  the 
scale  of  creation.  In  proportion  as  the  parent 
gave  of  his  vital  force  to  the  sustenance  and 
the  training  of  his  offspring,  the  assurance 
grew  that  the  race  in  which  this  group  of 
parent  and  child  was  a  social  unit  would  make 
good  its  claim  to  continued  existence.  With 
the  prolongation  of  infancy  the  creature  rose 
in  the  scale  of  creation.  With  the  appearance 
of  man  this  prolongation  of  infancy  appeared 
to  reach  its  normal  climax ;  but  as  man  him- 


138        THE  DYNAMIC   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

self  developed  intellectually  and  ethically,  it 
appeared  that  a  yet  further  prolongation  of 
infancy  must  be  provided  for.  The  child  was 
now  seen  to  be  dependent  upon  the  parent, 
not  merely  for  sustenance  and  shelter  during 
the  period  of  youth's  physical  incompetence  ; 
he  was  further  dependent  for  education  and 
ethical  nurture,  in  view  not  merely  of  the 
parent's  personal  experience,  but  of  the  re- 
corded experience  of  the  race.  In  a  new  sense, 
a  regard  for  the  future  was  forced  upon  every 
normal  human  life.  It  became  evident  to  far- 
seeing  men  that  life  at  its  best  involved  an 
investment  of  the  present  in  the  future. 

While  this  has  scarcely  come  to  be  recog- 
nized as  a  formulative  principle  in  the  doctrine 
of  Evolution,  it  can  hardly  be  questioned  that 
its  recognition  is  only  a  matter  of  time.  The 
moment  this  comes  to  pass,  place  will  not  only 
have  been  found,  but  necessity  will  have  arisen, 
for  the  office  of  religion  as  voiced  in  the  two 
great  commandments  of  Christianity.  How 
deep  the  significance  of  this  evolutionary  prin- 
ciple is  for  society,  Mr.  Kidd  has  lately  sug- 
gested to  us  in  a  volume,  the  main  conten- 
tions of  which  are  likely  to  abide,  however 
much  we  may  deplore  the  author's  lamentable 


THE   THESIS  139 

style,  or  take  issue  with  many  of  his  argu- 
ments. 

The  second  principle  elucidated,  half  in  its 
own  despite,  by  Evolution  was  that  the  process 
of  development  is  not  only  orderly,  it  is  pur- 
poseful. This  is,  of  course,  only  to  say  that 
the  order  of  events  in  the  universe,  as  viewed 
from  the  standpoint  of  Evolution,  seems  to  be 
susceptible  of  scientific  treatment.  The  very 
phrases,  "  Natural  Selection  "  and  "  Descent 
of  Man,"  imply  that  the  development  process 
has  a  rationale.  It  is  capable  of  apprehension 
by  a  thinking  man.  Its  law  can  be  at  least 
approximately  determined  by  observation,  in- 
duction, and  experiment.  Now  it  is  difficult 
to  convince  men  for  very  long  that  a  develop- 
ment which  is  so  orderly  as  to  make  a  direct 
appeal  to  the  human  mind,  and  which  is  so 
consistent  in  the  great  sweep  of  its  onward 
march  as  to  point  to  a  generally  continu- 
ous evolution  of  the  higher  from  the  lower, 
is  not  the  product  of  a  Reason  whose  methods 
it  is  within  the  power  of  human  reason  to 
follow  with  at  least  partial  intelligence.  The 
whole  process  is  so  responsive  to  thought;  the 
events  in  it  seem  upon  the  whole  to  be  so 
subordinate  to  the  rule  of  the  human  intellect ; 


140        THE  DYNAMIC   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

the  regimen  of  reason  seems  to  fit  their  case 
so  well,  that  it  is  impossible  to  doubt  their 
origin  in  reason.  As  I  have  before  implied, 
the  doctrine  of  Evolution  has  given  back  to  us 
a  teleology  far  richer  than  the  somewhat  me- 
chanical "  Theory  of  Final  Causes  "  which  it 
took  away. 

Here,  then,  the  evolutionary  hypothesis  pro- 
vides us  with  a  principle  that  is  essentially 
religious,  for  it  is  based  upon  the  existence  of 
a  "  Cosmic  Force  "  or  "  Power,"  which  so  far 
as  we  can  see  is  omnipresent.  It  is  resident 
in  events.  It  is  immanent  in  all  departments 
of  life  and  experience.  It  is  self-consistent  in 
its  working.  It  appears  to  be  future-regard- 
ing and  purposeful  in  a  large  and  comprehen- 
sive sense.  Its  methods  seem  to  be  rational 
in  that,  as  soon  as  discovered,  they  issue  a 
direct  and  immediate  challenge  to  the  human 
intellect.  All  this  is  only  to  say  that  the  prin- 
ciple whose  working  we  term  Evolution  is  a 
personal  power.  This  has  always  been  the 
claim  of  religion.  It  will  become,  I  believe, 
no  less  really  the  assertion  of  science;  for 
science  with  an  ever  increasing  certainty  pro- 
claims the  doctrine  of  one  universal  principle 
of  being,  life,  and  development.  It  is  impatient 


THE  THESIS  141 

of  any  theory  which  would  separate  effect  from 
cause,  or  remove  the  principle  of  life  and  de- 
velopment out  of  the  universe  in  which  the 
manifestations  of  its  power  appear ;  or  make 
the  processes  of  this  power  fundamentally  irra- 
tional. 

We  turn  to  the  Christian  religion  to  inquire 
if  there  be  any  corresponding  principle  of 
power,  immanent,  resident,  future-regarding, 
purposeful,  and  rational,  working  by  means  of 
imperfect  instruments  upon  obdurate  material 
for  the  attainment  of  large  ends  by  means  of 
a  process  of  development.  I  believe  that  we 
find  it  in  the  often  misunderstood  and  gen- 
erally neglected  Doctrine  of  the  Spirit. 


VII 
THE  WITNESS   OF   SCRIPTURE 

An  intelligent  man  who  should  come  to  the 
reading  of  the  Gospels  for  the  first  time 
and  without  theological  predisposition  would 
doubtless  be  impressed  with  Christ's  sense  of 
the  partial  nature  of  His  own  work  in  the 
flesh.  Early  in  the  ministry  He  began  to  per- 
ceive and  to  teach  that  His  bodily  presence 
with  the  disciples  was  but  an  episode  or  inci- 
dent in  the  work  of  redemption.  He  looked 
forward,  and  taught  them  to  look  forward,  to 
a  chapter  of  experience  very  different  from 
that  in  which  they  then  found  themselves. 
The  shepherd  was  to  be  taken  and  the  sheep 
scattered.  As  a  result  of  His  ministry  —  a  min- 
istry that  was  directed  to  making  life  whole  — 
division  was  to  appear  between  the  world  and 
His  disciples.  It  was  to  penetrate  into  fami- 
lies, to  break  up  households,  to  visit  hitherto 
relatively  contented  communities  with  utter 
unrest.    Though  a  very  Prince  of  Peace,  He 


THE  WITNESS  OF  SCRIPTURE  143 

saw  with  perfect  certainty  that  His  mission 
was  to  be  like  the  coming  of  a  sword  and  the 
kindling  of  a  fire  among  the  conventions  in 
which  men  were  making  their  homes.  The 
Gospel  was  to  prove  a  death-dealing  as  well 
as  a  life-giving  message.  Its  principle  was  a 
principle  of  discord  as  truly  as  of  order. 

Or  it  was  also  an  integral  part  of  Christ's 
teaching  that  the  death  and  the  discord  were 
to  be  capable  of  translation  into  terms  of  life 
and  peace.  It  is  instructive  to  note  the  perti- 
nacity with  which  He  clung  to  the  things  that 
live  and  grow  in  illustrating  the  coming  of 
the  Kingdom.  The  wheat  sprouts  secretly,  un- 
noticed if  not  forgotten  of  the  sower  until 
the  blade  appears.  The  leaven  is  hid  in  the 
meal  and  works  by  a  process  which  must  have 
been  completely  mysterious  then,  although 
its  method  is  partially  discerned  to-day.  The 
mustard  seed,  least  among  its  fellows,  becomes 
greatest  of  herbs  by  the  exercise  of  powers 
which  in  a  sense  are  resident,  although  their 
source  and  method  are  alike  beyond  our  ken. 
In  each  case  the  discord-element  appears.  The 
plow  cleaves  and  overturns  the  sward  in  its 
preparation  of  the  earth  for  the  seed,  as  the 
hand  of  the  bread-maker  spreads  commotion 


144        THE  DYNAMIC   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

and  disarrangement  through  the  mass  of  the 
meal  that  every  part  may  be  leavened. 

The  disciples  were  eager  to  interpret  their 
Master's  teachings  into  the  vocabulary  of  the 
present  or  the  near  future.  He  was  repeatedly 
obliged  to  tell  them  that  this  would  not  do. 
The  vocabulary  of  the  present  was  not  rich 
enough  to  fit  it  for  the  task.  Using  that  vo- 
cabulary, He  was  obliged  to  bury  much  teach- 
ing in  it  for  the  future  to  develop.  Many  of 
His  parables  were  cryptic  utterances,  whose 
significance  only  became  clear  in  the  light  of 
later  experience.  His  very  presence  in  the 
flesh  was  a  hiding  as  well  as  a  revealing  of 
the  truth ;  and  it  was  one  of  the  fundamental 
necessities  of  His  mission  that  He  should  go 
away,  and  go  by  the  door  of  supreme  sacrifice. 
No  life  ever  needed  a  right  perspective  so 
much,  if  it  is  to  be  understood.  In  a  most  emi- 
nent degree  it  was  forward-looking  and  future- 
regarding.  Christ  never  cut  loose  from  what 
was  vital  in  the  past ;  He  fulfilled  the  past. 
The  present  was  intensely  vivid  to  Him  and 
He  lived  in  it.  Yet  the  key  to  both  past  and 
present  was  in  the  hands  of  the  future. 

Hence  arose  the  expediency  of  His  depar- 
ture.   "  The  veil  of  flesh  hung  dark  "  before 


THE   WITNESS  OF  SCRIPTURE  145 

the  eyes  of  those  who  must  see  clearly  if  they 
were  ever  to  guide  their  fellows  into  a  saving 
knowledge  of  the  truth.  The  message  em- 
bodied in  Christ's  life  and  death  was  so  vital  as 
to  constitute  a  new  epoch  in  divine  revelation 
and  in  human  experience ;  but  it  could  only 
be  understood,  Christ  told  his  friends,  through 
the  presence  and  interpretation  of  another 
irapoLKkriTos,  or  Helper,  whose  advent  should 
succeed  His  own  departure.  This  Helper  was 
to  be  Lord  of  the  Future.  The  New  Dispen- 
sation was  to  be  His  rather  than  that  of  the 
Man,  Christ  Jesus.  He  was  to  interpret  the 
revelation  of  Christ  and  to  apply  it  to  life. 
He  was  to  be  the  treasurer  of  truth,  bringing 
out  of  His  treasury  the  new  and  the  old,  show- 
ing those  hitherto  hidden  interrelations  be- 
tween them  which  should  give  new  significance 
to  both.  It  should  be  His  to  guide  men  into 
all  the  truth.  He  should  clear  their  eyes  for 
the  discernment  of  eternal  distinctions,  convict 
their  hearts  of  sin  and  need,  and  win  their  lives 
into  consonance  with  God's  will.  In  Him  the 
world  was  to  know  God  forever  as  immanent 
and  executive. 

In  another  chapter  I  shall  attempt  to  show 
how  slow  the  Church  has  been  to  apprehend 


146        THE   DYNAMIC   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

this  doctrine,  to  apply  it  to  life,  and  to  enjoy 
its  freedom ;  as  well  as  to  indicate  its  wealth 
of  significance  for  our  present  somewhat  con- 
fused and  troubled  day.  I  pass  on  here,  to 
indicate  very  briefly  the  anticipation  of  it  that 
breathes  through  the  Old  Testament,  and  its 
further  amplification  in  the  teachings  of  the 
New. 

It  was  long  ago  remarked  by  Professor 
Robertson  Smith  that  the  idea  of  the  spirit- 
ual in  the  Hebrew  Scriptures  seemed  to  con- 
nect itself  with  the  divine  working  rather  than 
with  the  divine  nature.1 

The  Hebrew  word,  ruah,  means  in  the  first 
place,  breath  of  the  atmosphere,  or  wind; 
second,  the  breath  of  man ;  third,  the  prin- 
ciple of  vitality,  as  when  the  spirit  of  Jacob  re- 
vived upon  learning  that  Joseph  lived ;  fourth, 
the  life  of  feeling,  as  when  Pharaoh's  spirit  was 
troubled  at  his  inability  to  recall  his  dream ; 
fifth,  the  spiritual  element  in  human  nature, 
as  when  Moses  implores  Jehovah,  "  the  God  of 
the  spirits  of  all  flesh,"  to  appoint  a  leader  for 
Israel ;  and  sixth,  the  vital  energy  of  the  divine 

1  Prophets  of  Israel,  p.  61,  quoted  by  Professor  Swete  in 
Hastings's  Dictionary  of  the  Bible,  art.  "  Holy  Spirit."  Those 
familiar  with  this  most  suggestive  article  will  note  the  in- 
debtedness of  this  section  of  the  present  chapter  to  it. 


THE   WITNESS  OF  SCRIPTURE  147 

nature.  This  vital  energy  appears  in  the  phe- 
nomena of  human  life.  Elihu  exhorts  Job  to 
hear  him,  because  the  Spirit  of  God  had  made 
him  and  the  breath  of  the  Almighty  gave  him 
life.1  It  shows  itself  also  in  keeping,  renew- 
ing, and  withdrawing  life.  If  the  Almighty 
should  gather  unto  himself  His  Spirit  and 
His  breath,  all  flesh  must  perish  together.2 
The  man  who  possesses  exceptional  power  as 
a  leader  is  described  as  a  man  "in  whom  is 
the  Spirit."  3  Even  the  craftsman's  skill  of 
Bezalel  is  referred  to  the  special  inspiration 
of  Jehovah.  He  is  represented  as  called  by 
name,  and  "filled  with  the  Spirit  of  God,  in 
wisdom,  in  understanding,  and  in  knowledge, 
and  in  all  manner  of  workmanship."  4  So  the 
Spirit  of  God  might  visit  and  make  use  of 
men  of  doubtful  life  like  Baalam  or  Saul,  but 
His  abiding  presence  and  power  could  only 
be  the  possession  of  the  man  of  character. 

The  Prophet  was  the  man  upon  whom  in 
most  eminent  degree  the  Spirit  of  Jehovah 
rested.  "  The  true  prophet  is  one  who  is  lifted 
up  by  the  Spirit  of  God  into  communion  with 
Him,  so  that  he  is  enabled  to  interpret  the 

1  Job  xxxiii.  4.  2  Job  xxxiv.  15. 

8  Numbers  xxvii.  18.  4  Exodus  xxxv.  30-33. 


148        THE  DYNAMIC   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

divine  will  and  to  act  as  a  medium  of  com- 
munication between  God  and  men." 1  It 
would  perhaps  be  going  too  far  to  claim  that 
in  the  Old  Testament  the  work  of  the  Spirit 
of  Jehovah  is  made  distinctively  personal. 
There  is  an  approach  to  a  distinction  of  per- 
son in  the  rare  contrast  between  Spirit  and 
Word ;  but  upon  the  whole  the  Spirit  of  God 
seems  rather  to  be  an  expression  for  God  im- 
manent and  executive  in  the  affairs  of  the 
world.  The  thing  that  is  really  notable  is  the 
courage  and  consistency  with  which  all  energy 
is  referred  to  a  divine  source.  God  is  in  the 
beginning.  His  Spirit  broods  and  moves 
upon  the  face  of  the  waters.  He  breathes  into 
man  the  breath  of  life,  and  man  in  turn  be- 
comes a  living  soul,  capable  of  initiative,  but 
still  dependent  upon  the  divine  sources  of 
power.  In  the  common  exercise  of  ordinary 
human  abilities  the  divine  energy  was  so 
thinly  veiled  as  to  be  discernible  to  the  really 
clairvoyant  eye ;  while  in  all  genius  or  emi- 
nent talent  it  stood  forth  immediate  and  efful- 
gent. "  The  Hebrew  Scriptures  —  in  contrast 
to  the  timidity  of  many  of  their  apologists  — 
emphasize  the  origin  of    human  valour  and 

1  Hastings's  Dictionary  of  the  Bible,  ii.  403. 


THE   WITNESS  OF  SCRIPTURE  149 

justice,  skill,  art,  and  wisdom,  all  common  vir- 
tue and  common  knowledge  —  as  by  the  in- 
spiration of  Almighty  God.  The  earth  is 
Jehovah's  and  the  fullness  thereof.  The  Spirit 
of  man  is  the  candle  of  Jehovah.  By  Him 
kings  reign  and  princes  decree  justice."  ! 

As  time  went  on,  the  Palestinian  Jews  di- 
vided into  sects  and  grew  subservient  to  cere- 
monial law.  Under  this  change  the  larger 
doctrine  of  the  Spirit  seems  to  have  disap- 
peared. The  Palestinian  books  in  the  Apocry- 
pha have  but  few  references  to  the  Spirit. 
This  was  natural  in  view  of  the  increasing 
importance  which  the  apocalyptic  method  was 
assuming,  since  the  artificiality  of  the  hidden 
and  the  occult  is  always  at  variance  with  the 
simplicity  which  characterizes  the  Old  Tes- 
tament idea  of  the  Spirit.  It  was  impossible 
for  a  simple  faith  in  the  divine  immanence 
to  coexist  with  the  extraordinarily  elaborate 
angelology  and  demonology  which  the  school 
of  the  Pharisees  early  began  to  develop  and 
teach.2 

1  G.  A.  Smith,  Modern  Criticism  and  the  Preaching  of  the 
Old  Testament,  pp.  Ill,  112. 

2  Cf.  Edersheim,  Life  and  Times  of  Jesus  the  Messiahy 
Appendix  XIII.,  and  also  Porter,  art.  "Apocrypha,"  in 
Hastings's  Dictionary  of  the  Bible. 


150        THE  DYNAMIC   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

So  much  of  the  larger  and  more  vital  doc- 
trine as  survived,  appears  to  have  taken  refuge 
among  the  semi-heretical  Jews  of  Alexandria. 
The  book  of  Wisdom  reflects  and  expounds 
it.  "  For  wisdom  which  is  the  worker  of 
all  things,  taught  me.  .  .  .  For  wisdom  is 
more  moving  than  any  motion :  she  passeth 
and  goeth  through  all  things  by  reason  of 
her  pureness.  For  she  is  the  breath  of  the 
power  of  God,  and  a  pure  influence  flowing 
from  the  glory  of  the  Almighty.  .  .  .  For 
she  is  the  brightness  of  the  everlasting  light, 
the  unspotted  mirror  of  the  power  of  God, 
and  the  image  of  his  goodness."  1  "  For  thine 
incorruptible  Spirit  is  in  all  things." 2  The 
real  universality  of  this  doctrine,  developing 
as  it  does  the  inchoate  universality  of  the  Old 
Testament  references  to  the  Spirit,  and  look- 
ing forward  to  the  explicit  teaching  of  the 
Gospel,  is  best  brought  out  by  Philo.  As 
Professor  Swete  has  put  it,  "  The  Spirit  comes 
to  all  men,  since  even  the  worst  of  men  have 
their  moments  of  inspiration,  their  glimpses 
of  better  and  higher  things.  ...  Of  the 
ethical  aspects  of  the  Spirit's  work  in  man, 
Philo  has  little  to  say,  except  that  its  f  unc- 

1  Wisdom  vii.  22-26.  2  Wisdom  xii.  1. 


THE   WITNESS  OF  SCRIPTURE  151 

tion  is  to  promote  clearness  of  mental  vision 
and  capacity  for  the  intellectual  knowledge 
of  God,  and  that  it  fulfills  this  mission  either 
by  purifying  and  elevating,  or  as  in  the  case 
of  the  prophet,  by  superseding  the  natural 
faculties."  1 

As  we  enter  the  realm  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment, a  change  takes  place  in  the  terms  used, 
and  we  find  the  hitherto  rare  expression  to 
TTvev^a  to  ayiov  gaining  a  great  preponder- 
ance. The  Christian  Church  does  not  yet 
seem  to  realize  the  important  place  which  the 
New  Testament  writers  give  to  the  work 
of  the  Spirit  as  related  to  that  of  Christ;  or 
perhaps  more  exactly,  the  attempt  to  realize 
it  has  been  mechanical  and  unnatural,  as 
though  both  the  Incarnation  and  the  com- 
ing  of  the  Holy  Ghost  were  devices  to  which 
God  had  been  obliged  to  resort,  instead  of 
great  normal  self-declarations  of  His  nature. 
In  the  view  of  the  New  Testament  teach- 
ing, "  The  coming  of  the  Spirit  corresponds 
to  the  coming  of  the  Son,  mutatis  mutan- 
dis. .  .  .  The  Son  came  to  unite  Himself 
to  human  nature,  the  Spirit  came  to  inhabit 
it.  The  Son  came  to  tabernacle  amongst  men, 

1  Dictionary  of  the  Bible,  art.  "Holy  Spirit,"  B  :  II. 


152        THE   DYNAMIC   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

the  Spirit  to  dwell  in  them.  But  with  each 
coming  a  divine  mission  began  which  marks 
a  new  departure  in  God's  dealings  with  man- 
kind." 

I  have  already  referred  to  the  words  of  Jesus 
in  which  He  told  those  about  Him  of  the 
necessity  for  His  departure.  One  of  the  most 
conspicuous  illustrations  of  the  divine  poise 
and  balance  with  which  He  wrought  appears 
in  His  patience  with  the  obdurate  material 
which  He  had  to  mould  to  His  purposes.  His 
work  was  one  for  the  introduction  of  which  it 
was  needful  that  the  divine  should  be  trans- 
lated not  merely  into  terms  of  the  human,  but 
also,  if  we  may  so  speak,  into  terms  of  the 
corporeal.  The  Logos  could  never  become 
really  articulate  except  by  means  of  His  body 
—  a  body  to  be  worn  with  toil  and  to  be  laid 
aside  with  suffering.  But  it  was  equally  true 
that  the  Word  could  never  become  completely 
articulate  and  intelligible  while  Jesus  as  a  visi- 
ble bodily  presence  strove  to  utter  it  to  men 
who  tended  to  interpret  everything  in  terms  of 
the  temporal  and  earthy.  They  were  not  ready 
yet  to  grasp  the  great  distinction  between  the 
personal  and  the  corporeal.  The  presence  of 
their  Master  as  a  human  figure  before  their 


THE   WITNESS  OF  SCRIPTURE  153 

eyes  rendered  it  practically  impossible  that 
they  should  attain  to  this  distinction.  All  that 
Christ  could  do,  so  to  speak,  was  to  perform 
the  great  deeds  of  objective  ministry,  and 
to  tell  the  disciples  that  the  significance  of 
this  ministry  lay  in  the  future.  Yet  in  telling 
them  this  He  implied  that  they  would  be  quite 
as  really  under  personal  guidance  then  as  now. 
"When  He,  the  Spirit  of  Truth  shall  come, 
He  shall  lead  you  into  all  the  truth." 

It  is  worth  while  here  to  note  the  character 
of  this  influence  and  guidance.  The  verb  is 
oSrjyijcrei  —  a  compound  of  6Sos,  a  way,  and 
rjyeojjLai,  to  lead  —  and  the  meaning  lies  suf- 
ficiently plain  upon  its  face.  This  leadership 
into  the  truth  was  to  be  a  simple  and  natural 
thing.  There  was  to  be  no  miraculous  over- 
powering of  a  man  and  dragging  him  perforce 
into  the  realm  of  truth ;  but  the  process  begun 
by  Jesus  and  limited  in  a  sense  by  His  corpo- 
real presence  was  to  go  on.  The  obdurate  and 
intractable  material  among  the  disciples  would 
tend  to  remain  obdurate  and  intractable ;  but 
by  degrees  it  would  be  softened  and  moulded 
to  higher  ends,  as  the  guidance  of  the  Spirit 
of  Truth  continued.  It  is  nowhere  implied  by 
Jesus  that  any  sudden  illapse  of  power  was 


154        THE   DYNAMIC   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

to  come  upon  His  followers  to  clothe  them  or 
their  successors  with  the  divine  attribute  of 
omniscience,  or  to  relieve  them  of  the  necessity 
of  following  step  by  step  into  those  realms  of 
truth  which  were  the  Spirit's  home  and  their 
goal.  There  is  here  on  the  one  hand  no  im- 
plication that  the  Spirit's  guidance  involved 
the  infallibility  of  the  disciple  who  was  led, 
or  on  the  other  that  the  guidance  of  the  Spirit 
was  to  be  confined  to  the  group  who  then 
listened  to  Jesus  in  that  upper  chamber,  or  to 
their  immediate  successors. 

The  significance  of  this  verb  oS^yTfcra  grows 
upon  the  reader  as  he  ponders  the  phrase 
immediately  following  its  object  —  els  rrjv 
a\rjOeiav  Tracrav,  "into  all  the  truth."  There 
is,  it  should  be  remarked,  an  alternative  read- 
ing here  with  the  preposition  iv  followed  by 
the  dative  ;  but  the  two  readings  almost  imply 
each  other.  If  we  read  the  accusative  with 
ets,  then  it  is  into  the  depths  of  the  great 
realm  of  truth  that  the  disciples  are  to  be  led; 
if  the  dative  with  eV,  then  the  thought  would 
seem  to  be  of  a  leading  to  and  fro  through 
truth's  green  pastures  and  beside  the  waters 
of  its  comfort. 

This  was  Christ's  thesis  as  it  is  represented 


THE  WITNESS   OF   SCRIPTURE  155 

in  John  xvi.  12,  13.1  What  follows  was  in  the 
nature  of  an  amplification  of  it.  •  The  Spirit  of 
Truth  was  not  to  speak  from  Himself  merely, 
as  though  His  presence  and  work  represented  a 
breach  in  the  continuity  of  God's  self-revela- 
tion. There  is  no  thought  of  a  distinction  in 
the  Godhead  so  objective  as  to  need  for  its  em- 
phasis the  obscuration  of  its  unity.  The  work 
of  the  Spirit  was  to  be  immediately  related  to 
the  work  of  Christ  the  Saviour.  The  material 
of  truth  was,  so  to  speak,  furnished  by  Christ. 
The  Spirit  was  to  bring  men  to  avail  them- 
selves of  the  material,  to  build  with  it,  to  work 
it  over  into  such  forms  that  life  could  be  shel- 
tered and  nourished  by  it.  The  Spirit,  too,  was 
to  reveal  the  architectonic  plan  for  society 
as  men  were  able  to  receive  it.  He  would  open 
their  eyes  to  the  real  significance  of  their  expe- 
rience. He  would  flood  the  stagnant  shallows 
of  their  lives  with  the  full  tides  of  His  grace 
and  power.  He  would  lead  them  to  a  con- 
templation of  divine  mysteries,  especially  as 
revealed  in  Jesus ;  but  He  would  never  leave 
them  to  mere  contemplation,  even  though  they 

1  For  the  relation  between  the  Johannine  and  the  synoptic 
view,  which  must  of  course  influence  every  student  of  these 
passages,  cf.  Wendt,  Teachings  of  Jesus,  ii.  252  sqq. 


156        THE   DYNAMIC   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

might  plead  like  Peter  on  the  Mount  to  be  per- 
mitted to  build  tabernacles  and  remain.  The 
Spirit's  work  does  not  end  in  passivity,  be  that 
passivity  never  so  ecstatic,  but  in  service. 

The  more  deeply  the  student  ponders  the 
Johannine  treatment  of  this  great  theme,  the 
more  he  inclines  toward  the  use  of  some  ten- 
tative formula  to  express  the  Trinitarian  sug- 
gestions of  it.  To  avoid  certain  shipwreck 
upon  the  Scylla  of  definition  and  at  the  same 
time  to  steer  clear  of  the  Charybdis  of  utter 
vacuity  and  vagueness  is  no  easy  matter.  It 
would  seem,  however,  that  the  narrator  of  this 
discourse  of  Jesus  was  proceeding  upon  the 
hypothesis  that  in  the  Father,  God  is  ;  in  the 
Son,  He  utters  himself,  thus  becoming  artic- 
ulate and  intelligible  to  men  ;  while  in  the 
person  of  the  Spirit,  He  appears  among  men, 
not  merely  articulate  now,  but  executive  — 
working  in,  upon,  and  through  them.  It  will 
be  objected  in  some  quarters  that  upon  the 
forehead  of  such  doctrine  as  this  can  be  dis- 
cerned the  Hegelian  brand.  To  which  the 
grateful  answer  is  to  be  made,  that  whatever 
suspicion  may  still  attach  to  the  great  name 
of  Hegel,  it  has,  I  believe,  forever  lost  its 
damning  power. 


THE  WITNESS  OF  SCRIPTURE  157 

It  will  have  been  noticed  that  the  passage 
upon  which  comment  has  just  been  made  is  not 
one  of  those  containing  the  distinctive  Jo- 
hannine  term  for  the  Spirit  —  6  TTapaKkr)To<$. 
This  word  appears  four  times  in  the  Last 
Discourse  and  nowhere  else  except  in  the 
first  Epistle  of  St.  John,  when  it  is  applied  to 
the  glorified  Christ  exercising  His  mediatorial 
ofiice  ;  where  it  is  translated  "  Advocate."  The 
verb  irapaKaXeco  means  to  call  to  one's  side, 
to  summon,  especially  for  help,  as  an  accused 
man  may  summon  counsel  for  his  defense  at 
the  bar.  Hence  TrapdK\y]ro<;  means  one  who 
pleads  another's  cause  —  an  advocate.  Philo 
uses  it  in  the  sense  of  intercessor.  It  is  this 
office  that  is  designated  by  the  references  in 
all  three  of  the  Synoptic  Gospels  to  the  help 
which  the  Spirit  might  be  trusted  to  render  to 
disciples  when  they  were  brought  before  rulers 
and  magistrates  and  knew  not  what  to  say  ;  al- 
though the  Johannine  word  is  not  used.  When 
the  translation  "  Comforter  "  is  retained,  it 
must  be  with  the  understanding  that  it  is  used 
in  the  older  fashioned  and  general  sense  of 
"  comfort,"  as  in  the  law  which  defines  trea- 
son as  giving  "  aid  and  comfort "  to  the 
enemy.    The  King  James  translators  of  course 


158        THE  DYNAMIC  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

had  this  significance  of  "  comfort "  in  their 
minds,  and  their  use  of  "  Comforter  "  meant 
not  merely  one  who  assuages  grief  and  light- 
ens sorrow,  but  one  who  stands  ready  to  give 
aid  and  support  all  along  the  line  of  human 
need.  It  is  to  be  noticed  that  in  all  the  pas- 
sages where  6  7rapdK\r)Tos  appears,  it  evidently 
has  a  distinctly  personal  significance.  He 
comes  forth  from  the  Godhead  as  a  source. 
He  is  the  Spirit  of  truth  proceeding  from  the 
Father,  and  the  scope  of  His  activity  is  as 
wide  as  the  realm  of  truth  itself ;  but  His  im- 
mediate and  special  work  appears  to  be  the  tak- 
ing of  the  things  of  Christ  and  showing  them 
to  men.  Commentators  of  the  last  generation 
used  to  ask  whether  this  Helper  might  be  ex- 
pected to  add  to  the  revelation  made  in  Christ. 
In  the  common  acceptance  of  the  question  we 
must  answer,  Yes,  since  the  influences  of  the 
Spirit  are  always  revealing  to  men  things  that 
at  first  thought  they  refuse  to  connect  with 
the  teachings  of  Jesus.  As  the  revelation  pro- 
ceeds, however,  the  principles  that  govern 
action  under  it  find  their  source  and  their  sub- 
stantiation in  His  Gospel.  Almost  every  Johan- 
nine  reference  to  the  work  of  the  Spirit  not 
only  harmonizes  with  the  theory  of  a  progres- 


THE   WITNESS   OF  SCRIPTURE  159 

sive  revelation,  but  seems  to  demand  it,  if 
we  are  to  reach  any  adequate  comprehension 
of  Christ's  promise,  or  to  enjoy  the  fruits  of 
His  mission  in  any  other  than  a  narrow  and 
meagre  way.  The  scope  of  the  Spirit's  work 
is  far  more  comprehensive  than  the  Christian 
Church  has  often  been  willing  to  recognize.1 

One  further  fact  brought  out  by  a  compari- 
son of  the  other  passages  relating  to  the  office 
of  the  Spirit  with  this  which  we  are  consider- 
ing must  not  be  passed  unnoticed.  It  has  to 
do  with  the  method  of  the  Spirit  in  accom- 
plishing His  purpose.  That  purpose  is  no- 
thing less  than  the  conquest  of  the  world.  The 
method  is  summed  up  in  the  one  pregnant 
word  (\4yxeiv,  to  convince  of  wrong  or  error.2 
"  And  when  He  shall  have  come,  He  will  con- 
vince the  world  of  sin,  of  righteousness,  and  of 
judgment.  " 3  The  nouns  stand  in  the  Greek 
without  the  article,  and  hence  are  to  be  taken 
in  their  large  and  general  significance.    The 

1  Whether  or  not  it  be  His  office  to  teach  the  facts  of 
history,  I  do  not  presume  to  say.  But  I  wholly  agree  with 
Godet's  claim  that  it  is  His  office  to  reveal  the  meaning  of 
the  facts  of  history,  which  without  the  Spirit  would  be  only 
a  frigid  narrative  incapable  of  creating  or  sustaining  life. 
Cf.  Godet,  Gospel  of  John,  Am.  trans.,  ii.  305. 

2  Cf.  Godet,  ii.  309.  3  John  xvi.  8,  Godet's  trans. 


160        THE  DYNAMIC   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

world  is  to  be  won,  not  by  compulsion  put 
on  outward  freedom,  but  by  the  institution 
of  deep  heart-searchings.  Every  revelation  of 
truth  is  to  necessitate  a  breaking  up  and  a 
remoulding  of  men's  thought  upon  these  great 
realities,  with  Christ's  thought  upon  them  as 
the  norm  toward  which  each  reorganization  is 
to  effect  a  closer  approach. 

It  is  further  to  be  noted  that  the  instru- 
ments which  the  Spirit  will  use  in  applying 
this  method  to  a  scheme  of  world-conquest 
are  men  made  in  the  image  of  God.  "  He 
shall  show  you  the  way,"  Jesus  says  in  effect, 
"and  you  shall  point  it  out  to  others.  '  He  shall 
take  of  mine  and  announce  it  unto  you/  but 
only  that  you  may  in  turn  pass  it  on  to  those 
about  you  whose  need  to-day  is  what  yours 
was  yesterday."  Not  by  the  unutterable  groan- 
ings  of  nature  ;  not  by  cataclysmic  force  ;  but 
by  wise,  gracious,  and  loving  influence  of  re- 
deemed lives  inspired  by  sanctifying  power, 
shall  the  Spirit  do  His  work ;  and  the  army 
of  men  thus  redeemed,  thus  inspired,  thus  at 
work  for  the  fulfillment  of  the  Spirit's  pur- 
pose, shall  be  the  Church. 

The  candid  reader  of  the  Epistles  can 
scarcely  escape  the  conclusion  that  their  au- 


THE  WITNESS  OF  SCRIPTURE  161 

thors  were  conscious  of  a  divine  presence  in 
the  world  ready  to  do  for  the  individual  be- 
liever and  for  the  Church  what  Christ  might 
have   been  expected   to   do  could   He   have 
remained    in  bodily  form  with  the  disciples. 
Neither  St.  Paul  nor  St.  John  enters  upon  any 
elaborate  attempt  at  definition.    They  were, 
generally   speaking,    writing   letters    instead 
of  treatises  upon  systematic  theology.    Their 
theory  of    Christianity's  dynamic  is  implicit 
rather  than  explicit ;  and  any  modern  doctrine 
that  should  found  itself  upon  nothing  more 
coherent  than    scattered  proof-texts   clipped 
from  their  writings  must  remain  more  or  less 
a   thing  of   shreds   and   patches.     Professor 
Sanday  and  Mr.  Headlam  have  pointed  out 
with  great  discrimination  the  fact  that  there  is  a 
difference  in  the  doctrine  of  the  two  Apostles 
corresponding  to  a  difference  in  their  experi- 
ences.   Out  of  the  intimacy  of  his  personal 
fellowship  with  Jesus,  St.  John  thinks  of  the 
Spirit  as  "  another  Paracelete."    St.  Paul,  who 
had  enjoyed  no  such  knowledge  of  his  Master 
in  the  flesh,  but  who  knew  Him  at  first  hand 
in  the  spirit,  is  wont  to  refer  to  the  work  of  the 
Spirit  as  a  continuation  of  the  work  of  Christ 
without  any  break  except  the  corporeal  disap- 


162        THE  DYNAMIC  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

pearance  of  the  worker,  or  any  change  except 
the  change  of  growth  and  necessary  adaptation 
to  new  environment.1  The  phenomenon  of 
Pentecost  is  to  be  regarded  not  so  much  as 
the  beginning  of  the  Spirit's  presence  in  the 
Church  as  the  beginning  of  His  recognized 
headship  and  authority.2  Pentecost  brought 
light  and  power.  The  light  not  only  illumined 
the  future,  but  interpreted  the  past.  It  should 
never  be  forgotten  that  our  picture  of  the  life 
of  Jesus  is  not  the  picture  that  the  Twelve 
saw  in  the  days  of  their  pilgrimage  with  Him, 
so  much  as  it  is  the  representation  of  His  life 
and  words  as  the  Apostles  saw  them  in  the 
light  of  Pentecost's  illumination.  The  signifi- 
cance of  miracle,  parable,  personal  rejection, 
and  sacrifice  all  waited  for  the  Spirit's  reve- 
lation. Yet  this  revelation  was  intended  to  do 
more  than  confirm  and  guide  the  individual 
believer.  From  Pentecost  the  conviction  arose 
and  grew  that  the  work  of  the  Spirit  had  a  cor- 
porate as  well  as  an  individual  end.  He  was 
to  be  the  inspirer  and  leader  not  merely  of  the 
disciples,  but  of  the  Church. 

It  is  interesting  to  watch  the  growth  of  this 

1  Cf.  Sanday-Headlam,  Romans,  pp.  200,  201. 

2  Cf.  McGiffert,  Apostolic  Age,  pp.  49,  50. 


THE  WITNESS  OF  SCRIPTURE  163 

conviction  in  the  writings  of  St.  Paul.  In  the 
earlier  Epistles  the  presence  of  the  Spirit  is 
set  forth  as  of  eminent  worth  to  the  personal 
life  of  the  believer,  endowing  it  with  gifts 
and  graces  and  guiding  it  in  the  discernment 
between  true  and  spurious  charismata.  In  the 
middle  section  there  is  a  far  greater  tendency 
to  deal  with  the  Spirit's  nature  and  His  fun- 
damental relation  to  men.  Here  we  discern 
Paul's  growing  consciousness  that  the  Spirit 
is,  and  is  to  be,  regnant  in  the  whole  dis- 
pensation, the  first  chapters  of  whose  earthly 
history  he  and  his  fellow  disciples  were  then 
making  and  recording.  He  is  the  great  pur- 
veyor of  grace  to  men.  Wherever  He  walks 
the  earth,  faith,  hope,  and  love  spring  up 
to  mark  His  steps.  He  will  take  up  His  abode 
with  men  if  they  will  have  Him,  and  He  will 
consecrate  their  very  bodies  to  holy  ends  and 
uses.  The  man  who  walks  in  the  Spirit  shall 
show  the  fruits  of  the  Spirit.  These  shall 
be  of  such  a  sort  as  to  make  him  tolerant 
of  his  fellows  and  tolerable  to  them,  thus 
introducing  a  heavenly  comity  into  earthly 
social  life.  The  Spirit  dwelling  in  a  man  shall 
establish  a  certain  identity  between  the  human 
and  the  divine.    The  man  thus  inspired  shall 


164        THE  DYNAMIC   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

understand  as  by  instinct  the  things  of  God. 
He  shall  love  his  fellows  and  order  his  life 
according  to  a  heavenly  rule.  Hence  the  poor 
and  unlearned,  when  really  imbued  and  inspired 
with  the  Holy  Spirit,  shall  be  able  to  perceive 
and  effectively  witness  to  matters  which  seem 
insoluble  or  absurd  mysteries  to  the  wise  and 
great.1 

It  becomes  evident,  then,  that  the  indwelling 
of  the  Spirit  as  viewed  from  the  standpoint 
of  the  Epistles  is  eminently  social  in  its  re- 
sults. This  conviction  seems  to  have  possessed 
St.  Paul  in  an  increasing  measure  as  time 
went  on.  It  is  deepest  in  the  later  Epistles. 
The  Church  is  become  more  than  a  few  groups 
of  individuals  of  similar  belief  and  experi- 
ence. It  is  a  new  society  establishing  itself 
in  the  midst  of  an  old  and  moribund  civili- 
zation. Its  destiny  is  nothing  less  than  the 
ushering  in  of  a  new  heaven  and  a  new  earth 
wherein  righteousness  shall  dwell.  The  writer 
of  2  Peter  looked  for  the  dawn  of  this  new 
day  amid  cosmic  revolution  and  cataclysm. 
Paul  looked  for  cosmic  revolution  too ;  but 
the  real  secret  of  the  new  society  lay  beyond 

1  1  Cor.  xi.  Cf.  Matheson,  Spiritual  Development  of  St 
Paul,  pp.  179  sqq. 


THE   WITNESS  OF  SCRIPTURE  165 

all  this.  The  ideal  of  the  Church  as  a  compre- 
hensive and  eternally  vital  organization  seems 
to  have  been  ever  with  him  in  the  later  days 
of  his  apostleship.  The  union  of  believers  in 
the  bonds  of  peace  is  to  be  the  result  of  the 
Spirit's  indwelling.1  Individual  grace  has  now 
a  more  distinct  and  definite  corporate  pur- 
pose than  ever  ;2  and  significantly  enough,  it 
is  in  the  light  of  this  corporate  purpose,  this 
new  social  consciousness,  that  St.  Paul  writes 
of  the  graces  of  individual  Christian  character 
with  the  most  eminent  felicity,  freshness,  and 
power.3 

We  see,  then,  that  the  place  accorded  to 
a  doctrine  of  the  Spirit  in  both  Old  and  New 
Testaments  is  at  once  larger  and  more  vital 
than  students  of  the  Bible  have  commonly 
realized.  "The  Spirit ' '  has  always  been  an 
expression  for  some  form  of  the  divine  im- 
manence. The  writer  who  used  it  has  always 
represented  God  as  immediately  present  in 
human  life  and  the  world  of  common  affairs, 
imparting  skill  to  the  workman's  fingers,  wis- 
dom to  the  statesman's  judgment,  or  eloquence 

1  Ephesians  iv.  3.  2  Ephesians  iv.  7-12. 

8  Cf.  Hastings's  Dictionary  of  the  Bible,  art.  "  Holy  Spirit," 
ii.  410. 


166        THE  DYNAMIC   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

and  cogency  to  the  prophet's  plea.  This  nor- 
mal self-revelation  of  God  is  overshadowed 
rather  than  interrupted  by  the  special  revela- 
tion through  Jesus  Christ,  —  but  only  mo- 
mentarily, and  as  it  were  for  the  purpose  of 
a  better  understanding  of  normal  methods. 
So  God  is  represented  as  speaking  to  Moses 
face  to  face  upon  the  mountain,  that  Moses 
might  have  greater  assurance  and  intelli- 
gence in  interpreting  the  more  commonplace 
relations  of  the  camp  and  plain ;  and  Jesus 
takes  his  chosen  companions  to  a  summit 
of  transfiguration,  that  long  afterward  the 
Spirit's  teaching  about  His  life  and  death 
might  have  more  significance  and  power. 
Pentecost  marked  the  recurrence  to  an  old 
and  normal  order  of  revelation  quite  as  truly 
as  the  establishment  of  any  new  order.  It 
did  mark  a  new  era,  however,  because  from 
this  time  on  some  men  were  to  see  that  God 
was  in  His  world, — executive  in  it, — capable 
of  immediate  perception  by  every  intelligent 
being,  —  capable,  indeed,  of  something  like 
assimilation  by  every  spiritually  clairvoyant 
soul.  The  Spirit  in  the  world  was  to  be  the 
inspirer  and  director  of  every  honest  search 
after  truth  and  every  attempt  to  translate  it 


THE   WITNESS  OF  SCRIPTURE  167 

into  goodness,  in  both  individual  and  social 
life. 

In  the  next  chapter  we  shall  inquire  as  to 
the  measure  of  recognition  which  the  Chris- 
tian Church  has  seen  fit  to  accord  to  this  im- 
plicit revelation  of  Scripture. 


VIII 

THE  WITNESS   OF  THE   CHRISTIAN 
CHURCH 

When,  under  the  influence  of  the  new  sci- 
ence of  Comparative  Religion,  what  may  be 
called  the  Natural  History  of  Religion  comes 
to  be  written,  we  may  expect  to  find  that  all 
highly  developed  religions  pass  through  a 
common  struggle  between  institution  and 
principle,  body  and  soul,  system  and  spirit. 
This  is  equally  true  of  philosophies,  which  as 
soon  as  they  are  reduced  to  systems  need  to 
be  improved  upon,  broken  up,  and  revived. 
It  is  no  less  the  experience  of  governments, 
which  never  find  written  constitutions  per- 
manently adequate  to  the  reconciliation  of 
their  principles  with  their  circumstances. 
The  Parisian  bookseller  who  answered  the 
inquiry  for  a  copy  of  the  French  Constitution 
with  the  statement  that  he  did  not  keep  peri- 
odical literature  uttered  words  of  truth  and 
soberness.    All  written  constitutions  must  be 


THE  WITNESS   OF  THE  CHURCH         169 

instruments  of  periodic  reissue  or  amend- 
ment, unless  they  are  to  become  instruments 
of  tyranny. 

An  instructive  historical  parallel  might  be 
drawn  between  the  history  of  Christianity 
and  the  history  of  the  Platonic  philosophy  in 
this  respect.  Both  passed  through  a  period 
when  asceticism  and  enthusiasm  threatened  to 
become  the  dominant  note  of  the  Christian 
and  the  Platonist,  though  neither  the  founder 
of  the  religion  nor  the  father  of  the  philo- 
sophy was  an  ascetic  or  an  enthusiast.1  The 
Christian  Church  was  scarcely  chartered  and 
established  before  it  found  itself  involved  in 
this  inevitable  struggle.  The  vital  and  fruit- 
ful period  of  the  old  dispensation  had  come 
to  an  end  with  the  passing  of  the  prophets. 
The  critical  question  for  Christianity  was 
whether  or  not  the  prophetic  spirit  and  office 
were  to  be  revived  and  retained.  St.  Paul 
had  recognized  the  prophet  as  worthy  of  all 
honor,  and  in  the  famous  treatise  upon  spir- 
itual gifts  in  his  first  letter  to  the  Corinthians, 

1  Cf.  the  suggestive  rather  than  authoritative  essay  on 
Plotinus  in  Vaughau's  Hours  with  the  Mystics,  i.  83.  Also 
the  more  systematic  treatment  of  his  relations  both  to  Plato- 
nism  and  Christian  Mysticism  in  Inge,  Christian  Mysticism, 
pp.  91-99. 


170        THE  DYNAMIC   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

had  given  him  a  place  next  to  that  of  the 
Apostles.  As  the  Church  developed  institu- 
tionally, the  prophet  remained  the  free  man  in 
it.  His  authority  was  immediate  rather  than 
derivative.  In  the  Didache  (10)  the  prophet 
is  designated  as  the  proper  person  to  conduct 
public  worship,  and  the  only  person  who  may 
offer  thanksgiving  in  such  words  as  seem  to 
him  to  be  fit,  and  without  recourse  to  litur- 
gical forms.1  It  was  to  be  expected  that 
this  would  open  the  way  for  occasional  ex- 
travagance and  error.  St.  Paul  accordingly 
reminds  the  Corinthians  in  monitory  phrase 
that  God  is  the  author  of  peace  rather  than 
of  confusion,  and  that  the  true  prophet  is 
always  master  of  such  measure  of  the  Spirit 
as  is  intrusted  to  him;2  but  he  was  too 
shrewd  and  wise  not  to  see  even  in  the  occa- 
sional outbreaks  of  mantic  frenzy  the  hyper- 
trophy of  a  real  power  placed  at  the  disposal 
of  the  Church. 

The  power  was  too  immediate  and  genu- 
inely vital,  however,  to  admit  of  easy  regu- 
lation.   Hence,  as  the  institutional  growth  of 

1  Cf.  Gwatkin,  art.  "  Prophet  in  the  New  Testament," 
in  Hastings's  Dictionary  of  the  Bible. 

2  1  Cor.  xiv. 


THE  WITNESS   OF  THE   CHURCH  171 

the  Church  advanced,  the  prophet  became 
a  thorn  in  the  side  of  every  organizer.  The 
Church  had  a  great  work  to  do.  Thorough 
organization,  strict  discipline,  a  clear  recogni- 
tion of  the  metes,  bounds,  and  responsibili- 
ties of  every  office,  seemed  to  be  indispensable 
to  its  accomplishment.  Thus  in  the  realm  of 
belief  fixed  creedal  forms  were  of  value,  that 
it  might  be  determined  whether  a  man  be- 
longed to  the  household  of  faith  or  not.  The 
Church  saw  its  mission  in  the  possible  con- 
quest of  the  world  for  Christ.  It  saw  the 
model  of  organization  in  the  Empire.  It  pro- 
ceeded to  gird  itself  for  the  struggle  by  all 
the  methods  known  to  wise  and  prudent  men 
in  whom  the  spirit  of  leadership  was  mov- 
ing. The  end  determined  the  means.  A  vast 
institution,  with  its  hierarchies,  its  creeds,  its 
revelation  contained  in  a  sacred  book,  began 
to  take  definite  and  permanent  form.  It 
was  admirably  adapted  to  its  work  of  con- 
quest ;  admirably  adapted  to  grow  —  but  to 
grow  as  an  institution  by  a  process  of  half- 
mechanical  accretion  rather  than  to  develop 
according  to  the  law  of  an  endless  life.  This 
development  was  not  to  be  foregone;  but 
it  was  to  be  accomplished  with  struggle  and 


172        THE  DYNAMIC   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

difficult  bursting  of  institutional  bonds  • —  the 
age-old  conflict  between  the  orthodox  and 
the  heretic. 

A  chief  place  among  the  protagonists  in 
this  great  drama  must  be  accorded  to  the 
Montanist.  Fanatic  though  he  was  and  narrow 
too,  as  most  fanatics  are,  still  his  shrill  voice 
testified  to  one  truth  that  was  vital  and  per- 
manent. His  programme  was  in  many  respects 
negative  and  hostile  to  true  development ;  but 
there  was  one  positive  element  in  it  which 
goes  far  to  atone  for  all  the  negations.  The 
Montanist  steadfastly  maintained  that  the 
circle  of  revelation  was  by  no  means  complete; 
that  the  sum  of  revelation  was  not  yet  cast 
up ;  and  that  the  avenues  of  revelation  were 
not  yet  closed.  God's  Spirit  yet  strove  with 
man  ;  spoke  to  him  immediately ;  guided  his 
endeavor,  if  he  were  willing  to  be  led ;  and 
made  each  year  of  the  Church's  life  richer  in 
knowledge  than  the  last.  It  will  be  said  in 
reply  that  the  Montanist  was  an  ascetic  and 
an  enthusiast ;  that  he  had  grotesquely  literal 
notions  with  reference  to  the  "  end  of  the 
age "  and  the  approaching  reappearance  of 
the  Lord ;  that  he  threw  common  sense  to  the 
winds  in  wooing  martyrdom,  and  did  despite 


THE  WITNESS   OF  THE  CHURCH         173 

to  Christian  charity  in  his  treatment  of  those 
who,  under  stress  of  persecution,  had  re- 
canted. All  this  is  true,  and  it  is  further 
to  be  alleged  against  him  that  even  his  exalta- 
tion of  prophecy  was  vitiated  by  his  reversal 
of  St.  Paul's  dictum,  and  that  he  thought  of 
the  prophet  as  subject  to  the  Spirit  in  a  degree 
that  practically  suppressed  his  own  personal- 
ity.1 Yet  after  all  is  said,  the  Montanist  her- 
etic bore  manful  testimony  to  the  rights  of 
the  individual  as  opposed  to  the  authority 
of  the  Church ;  and  to  the  continuity  of  revela- 
tion as  an  experience  of  every  man  whose  life 
is  open  to  the  Spirit's  voice.  The  Montanist 
himself  had  his  day,  passed,  and  is  remem- 
bered only  as  a  name ;  but  by  way  of  Tertul- 
lian  his  influence  told  upon  Christendom. 

It  is  interesting  to  note  that  the  man  who 
gave  to  the  Church  the  formula  of  apostolic 
succession  should  himself  have  laid  stress  upon 
an  apologetic  method  which  could  afford  to 
leave  it  entirely  out  of  account.  But  when  at 
his  best,  —  for  no  man  was  ever  subject  to 
greater  vicissitude  of  spiritual  experience,  — 
the  impetuous  Carthaginian  defended  more 
significant   things  than  apostolic  succession. 

1  Cf.  Allen,  Christian  Institutions,  pp.  99-105. 


174        THE  DYNAMIC   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

Unlike  the  earlier  Montanists,  he  accepted  the 
Church's  organization.  He  was,  however,  in 
no  way  reconciled  to  the  claim  of  the  organized 
and  visible  Church  to  an  exclusive  revelation. 
There  was  danger  lest  the  Church  should  ac- 
cept the  doctrine  that  Heaven,  open  once  for 
the  impartation  of  truth,  was  closed  again ; 
and  that  truth  itself  was  a  deposit  to  be  kept 
intact  and  pure.  Against  such  belittling  — 
for  belittling  it  would  eventually  prove  to  be 
—  of  the  Church,  the  Bible,  and  the  Christian 
experience,  Tertullian  strove.  Nor  did  he  strive 
altogether  in  vain.  The  Church  reckoned  with 
him,  and  with  the  Montanists  through  him, 
as  she  often  reckons  with  those  whom  she  con- 
demns. While  repudiating  the  heretic,  she  not 
infrequently  accepts  the  gist  of  his  heresy, 
translated  into  her  own  terms.  Thus,  ever  since 
the  day  of  Gnostic  and  Montanist,  the  possi- 
bility of  continued  and  immediate  revelation 
of  the  truth  to  men  by  the  Spirit  through  a 
multitude  of  varied  avenues  has  been  implicit 
in  the  Church's  doctrine.  The  periods  in 
which  it  has  been  recognized  and  acted  upon 
have  been  times  of  unrest,  doubt,  struggle? 
bitterness,  but  none  the  less  times  of  growth. 
As  Professor  Allen  has  recently  and  eloquently 


THE  WITNESS   OF  THE   CHURCH         175 

put  it,  "  The  obscure  prophet  of  Phrygia 1  had 
raised  the  eternal  question  of  the  ages.  On 
the  one  hand,  administration  and  order,  the 
well-being  of  the  Church  in  its  collective  ca- 
pacity, the  sacred  book,  the  oral  voice  of  the 
Master,  the  touch  of  the  vanished  hand,  the 
perpetuation  as  of  a  bodily  presence,  some 
physical  chain,  as  it  were,  which  should  bind 
the  generations  together,  so  that  they  should 
continue  visibly  and  tangibly  to  hand  on  the 
truth  and  the  life  from  man  to  man ;  and 
on  the  other  hand,  the  freedom  of  the  Spirit, 
and  the  open  heaven  of  revelation,  individual 
opportunity  for  the  fullest  development  and 
expression,  the  transcendental  vision,  as  with 
St.  Paul,  who  declares  that  '  though  we  have 
known  Christ  after  the  flesh,  yet  henceforth 
know  we  Him  no  more/  the  vision  by  which 
each  soul  may  see  Christ  for  himself  through 
direct  and  immediate  communion  with  the 
Spirit  of  God,  that  Spirit  whose  testimony 
within  the  soul  is  the  supreme  authority  and 
ground  of  certitude,  who  takes  of  the  things 
of  Christ  and  reveals  them  to  men  with  fresh 
power  and  new  conviction,  who  can  at  any 
moment  authorize  initiations  of  change  and 

1  Montanus. 


176        THE  DYNAMIC   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

progress,  which  yet  do  not  and  cannot  break 
the  succession  of  a  continuous  life  of  the  Spirit 
in  the  churches,  —  such  were  the  terms  of  the 
real  issue  between  Catholicism  and  Montanism, 
which  still  wait,  after  eighteen  centuries,  for 
some  larger  or  final  adjustment.' ' 1 

To  revive  this  issue  in  every  age  that  bade 
fair  to  forget  its  existence,  and  to  settle  down 
into  contentment  with  the  institutional  and 
conventional,  has  been  the  office  of  the  long 
and  noble  line  of  Christian  Mystics.  The  in- 
tensely practical  and  busy  day  in  which  we  live 
seems  little  likely  to  find  any  place  for,  or  to 
show  any  sympathy  with,  the  mystic.  Nearly 
half  a  century  ago  Vaughan  pointed  out  — not 
without  some  signs  of  satisfaction  —  that 
Britain  had  been  poor  in  mystics.  As  "  Ath- 
erton  "  puts  it :  — 

"  Our  island  would  be  but  a  spare  contrib- 
utor to  a  general  exhibition  of  mystics.  The 
British  cloister  has  not  one  great  mystical 
saint  to  show.  Mysticism  did  not,  with  us, 
prepare  the  way  for  the  Reformation.  John 
Wiekliffe  and  John  Tauler  are  a  striking  con- 
trast in  this  respect.    In  the  time  of  the  Black 

1  Allen,  Christian  Institutions,  p.  103.    The  whole  chapter 
on  "  The  Ministry  in  the  Second  Century  "  is  of  distinct  value. 


THE   WITNESS  OF  THE   CHURCH         177 

Death,  the  Flagellants  could  make  no  way 
with  us.  Whether  coming  as  gloomy  super- 
stition, as  hysterical  fervour,  or  as  pantheistic 
speculation,  mysticism  has  found  our  soil  a 
thankless  one."  1  Yet  this  is  but  a  partial  and 
rather  shallow  generalization.  It  is  true  only 
from  the  standpoint  of  one  who  thinks  of  the 
mystic  as  always  standing  apart  from  the  com- 
mon affairs  of  life  wrapt  in  his  vision.  The 
great  mystics  have  indeed  seen  visions  and 
dreamed  dreams ;  but  ecstasy  has  been  merely 
the  occasional  experience  of  the  occasional 
individual.  The  great  and  mightily  influen- 
tial rank  and  file  have  been  quiet,  industrious, 
charitable,  and  sincerely  pious  folk,  who  did 
their  daily  work  in  the  light  of  God's  glory 
shining  upon  them  from  the  face  of  Christ, 
and  in  the  comfort  of  God's  will  interpreted 
immediately  to  their  hearts  by  the  voice  of 
the  Spirit. 

There  is  contrast,  as  "  Atherton "  con- 
tends, between  Wickliffe  and  Tauler ;  but  it 
is  incidental  rather  than  essential,  circumstan- 
tial rather  than  fundamental.  Wickliffe  was 
almost  as  real  a  mystic  as  Tauler,  but  less  of 
a  quietist.    The  notion  that  the  mystic  must 

1  Hours  with  the  Mystics,  ii.  253. 


178        THE  DYNAMIC  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

needs  be  odd  and  grotesque  in  order  to  sub- 
stantiate his  claim  to  membership  in  the 
brotherhood  is  a  mischievous  one.  The  out- 
standing mystics  have  borne  testimony  to 
strange  experiences  and  walked  in  unconven- 
tional paths,  it  is  true  ;  but  even  in  their  cases 
there  has  been  such  a  tendency  on  the  part  of 
their  biographers  to  emphasize,  if  not  to  ex- 
aggerate, this  side  of  their  lives  that  tradition 
has  become  miserably  warped  and  distorted. 
We  should  probably  find  a  woman  of  strong 
good  sense  and  hearty  good  humor,  as  well 
as  of  extraordinary  executive  ability,  if  we 
could  pierce  the  veil  of  legend  that  hides  as 
well  as  canonizes  St.  Teresa.  The  practical 
efficiency  of  Madame  Guyon  is  as  far  beyond 
question  as  her  personal  charm.  The  some- 
what dim  figures  of  Eckhart  and  Tauler  are 
majestic  rather  than  grotesque.  Molinos  and 
Fenelon  were  at  home  among  courtiers  in  the 
Vatican  and  at  Versailles.  The  eccentricities 
of  George  Fox  have  been  remembered,  while 
the  very  practical  means  which  he  employed 
to  relieve  the  misery  of  those  who  were  in  jail 
with  him,  and  to  provide  for  the  necessities 
of  the  poor,  have  been  forgotten.  Bunyan's 
illapse  of  transient  terror  while  bell-ringing  or 


THE   WITNESS   OF   THE   CHURCH         179 

playing  tip-cat  has  obscured  his  native  shrewd- 
ness, his  quaint  humor,  his  years  of  peaceful 
and  devoted  industry,  in  such  degree  as  to 
make  him  seem  abnormal  and  half  repulsive 
to  many  a  reader  of  his  life  who  might  well 
have  rejoiced  in  acquaintance  with  the  man 
himself  —  typical  Englishman  as  he  really 
was,  after  all  is  said. 

In  an  imaginary  letter  to  Flaccus,  Plotinus 
is  represented  as  contending  that  knowledge 
has  three  degrees  —  opinion,  science,  and  illu- 
mination. The  means  of  opinion  is  sense  ;  of 
science,  dialectic;  and  of  illumination,  intu- 
ition, which  is  defined  as  absolute  knowledge 
founded  on  the  identity  of  the  mind  knowing 
with  the  object  known.1 

It  is  not  to  be  supposed  that  this  intuition 
is  necessarily  independent  of  sense  and  science. 
The  intuitive  stage  may  properly  enough  be 
reached  by  way  of  these  prior  stages.  It  is 
the  stage  upon  which  the  mind  not  merely 
perceives  and  reasons,  but  identifies  itself  with 
the  material  of  experience.  Christ  seems  to 
have  had  something  of  this  sort  in  His  mind 
when  He  uttered  some  of  the  more  daring 
and  startling  sayings  about  the  identity  which 
1  Vaughan,  Hours  with  the  Mystics,  i.  86,  87. 


180        THE   DYNAMIC   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

might  exist  between  Himself  and  His  disci- 
ples. "  Whoso  eateth  my  flesh,  and  drink- 
eth  my  blood,  hath  eternal  life."  *  "  So  he 
that  eateth  me,  even  he  shall  live  by  me." 2 

The  words  have  been  justified  in  the  ex- 
perience of  religion.  Christianity  has  always 
found  some  lives  to  whose  general  sense  of 
good  it  has  appealed;  but  they  have  gone 
no  further  than  to  approve  it  in  a  nerveless 
and  complexionless  fashion.  Others  have  seen 
in  it  that  which  promised  to  advantage  them 
in  such  measure  that  they  have  been  moved 
to  contend  for  it.  They  regard  faith  as  a 
source  of  comfort  in  grief,  or  of  assurance  in 
prospect  of  death,  or  of  physical  and  mental 
serenity  —  a  good  policy,  for  life.  Multitudes 
doubtless  accept  faith  upon  these  terms.  It 
is  a  perfectly  reasonable  course  and  beyond 
carping  criticism.  But  the  fact  remains  that 
religious  influence  reaches  its  highest  poten- 
tial only  in  the  man  who  feeds  upon  his  faith. 
He  thinks  less  of  the  demands  which  religion 
is  likely  to  make  upon  him,  or  of  the  benefits 
which  he  is  likely  to  reap  from  it  —  but  he 
ponders  more  upon  its  intrinsic  necessity  to 
him.    It  is  for  him.    He  would  be  lost  with- 

1  John  vi.  54.  2  John  vi.  57. 


THE  WITNESS  OF  THE   CHURCH  181 

out  it.  The  object  of  his  faith  is  not  so  much 
an  entity  apart  from  himself,  beckoning  or 
commanding,  as  a  Spirit  with  whose  essence 
his  own  is  becoming  identified. 

Within  this  sense  of  immediateness  are  the 
hidings  of  the  Mystic's  power.  As  Professor 
Seth  put  it,  "  God  ceases  to  be  an  object 
and  becomes  an  experience."  1  All  great  re- 
ligions as  distinct  from  merely  ecclesiastical 
revivals  have  borne  witness  to  the  reality  of 
tin's  distinction,  and  to  the  power  which  the 
"  experience  of  God "  confers.  This  power 
has  shown  itself  to  be  strikingly  independent 
of  ecclesiastical  circumstance.  The  real  Dy- 
namic of  Christianity  has  once  and  again 
proven  itself  to  be  a  thing  springing  so  directly 
out  of  spiritual  experience  that  everything  else 
can  be  treated  with  relative  contempt. 

The  Reformation  and  Counter-Reformation 
afford  a  case  in  point.  Both  were  great  reli- 
gious movements  designed  for  diverse  ends. 
Both  were  religiously  powerful  in  proportion 
as  they  realized  anew  this  experience  of  God. 
Luther's  interpretation  of  the  Epistle  to  the 
Romans  was  really  an  emphatic  statement  of 
the  fact  that  salvation  consisted  in  nothing 

1  Cf.  Inge,  Christian  Mysticism,  Appendix  A,  p.  339. 


182        THE  DYNAMIC   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

less  or  else  than  this  union  of  God  and  man 
in  the  experience  of  faith.  Man  did  not  lose 
his  identity,  to  be  sure.  Yet  the  bond  which 
faith  established  was  organic  rather  than 
artificial  or  mechanical.  The  man  justified 
by  faith  was  regrafted  upon  the  divine  stock ; 
rearticulated  as  a  branch  to  the  vine,  so  that 
one  life  current  energized  the  whole  organism. 
The  Eeformation  was  fundamentally  nothing 
less  than  an  assertion  of  the  freedom  and  dig- 
nity that  are  man's  prerogative  because  a 
Spirit  of  Wisdom,  Light,  and  Power  —  which 
is  none  other  than  the  Spirit  of  God  Himself 
—  waits  to  take  up  His  abode  not  merely 
with  him  but  in  him,  so  soon  as  by  the  act  of 
faith  he  shall  be  reunited  to  the  divine.  This 
freedom  was  not  merely  a  right  of  private 
judgment  in  the  interpretation  of  Scripture. 
Beginning  the  assertion  of  itself  in  the  matter 
of  Scripture,  it  was  bound  to  go  further  until 
it  claimed  all  regions  of  thought  and  conduct 
for  its  province.  This  meant  antinomianism 
in  some  quarters.  But  sporadic  anarchy  is  one 
of  the  prices  which,  upon  the  present  level  of 
human  imperfection,  we  must  pay  for  epidemic 
freedom.  Germany's  freedom  of  thought,  the 
scope  and  daring  of  her   scientific  specula- 


THE   WITNESS   OF  THE  CHURCH         183 

tion,  her  rationalism  as  well  as  her  profound 
piety,  are  children  of  one  family,  —  some  nat- 
ural, some  legitimate,  but  all  of  Reformation 
blood. 

The  Counter-Reformation  had  two  objects, 
or  at  least  wrought  two  results.    One  was  to 
restore  the  states,  the  influence,  the  revenues, 
and  the  prestige  which  Rome  had  lost.    The 
other  was  to  bring  back  a  better  life  to  the 
Church  itself  ;   for  the   Reformation,  so  far 
as  Rome  herself  was  concerned,  issued  in  revi- 
val as  truly  as  in  schism.    The  fact  that  this 
Counter-Reformation  consented  to  use  the  In- 
quisition as  an  ally,  and  that  the  rise  of  the 
Jesuits  synchronized  with  it,  should  not  blind 
us  to  the  fact  that  it  was  in  a  real  sense  a  re- 
vival of  piety.    Spiritual  force  was  developed 
during  this  period  in  Seville  and  Toledo  as 
well  as  in  Wittenberg  and  Geneva.    Persecu- 
tion had  its  way  to  a  lamentable  degree.  One 
cannot  but  wonder  what  Spain  might  have 
become,  could  the  legitimate  fruits  of  the  cul- 
ture of  Salamanca   and  Alcala  have  ripened 
and  come  to  the  harvest.    That  was  not  to  be. 
The  "  Index  Expurgatorius  "  dealt  out  equal 
intolerance  to  the  work  of  the  Arab  Aver- 
roes,  the  German  Eckhart,  and  the  leaders  of 


184        THE  DYNAMIC  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

Spain's  own  contemporary  thought  like  Louis 
de  Leon.1  It  was  the  privilege  of  the  Inquisi- 
tion to  debase  and  deform  spiritual  life ;  but 
it  could  not  kill  or  altogether  repress  it ;  and 
among  the  strongest  witnesses  to  the  power 
which  the  life  of  the  Spirit  is  bound  to  exert, 
even  when  dealing  with  obdurate  material 
and  forced  into  grotesque  and  half  repulsive 
forms  of  expression,  stand  the  lives  of  St. 
Teresa  and  St.  Juan  of  the  Cross.  There  is 
a  curious  coincidence  between  certain  expres- 
sions of  St.  Teresa  concerning  belief  in  Christ 
as  the  only  ground  of  salvation,  and  Luther's 
statement  of  his  great  thesis  of  Justification.2 
But,  interesting  as  the  attempt  might  be,  it 
is  no  part  of  my  purpose  to  expound  the  doc- 
trine of  these  famous  Spaniards.  I  cite  them 
as  examples  of  the  fact  that  leadership  in 
the  paths  of  effective  piety  was  vouchsafed  to 
Romanists  as  really  as  to  Protestants,  though 
I  believe  in  less  degree  during  that  particular 
century. 

The  power  of  the  Church  —  and  here  I  do 
not  mean  temporal  dominion,  but  a  genuine 
and  legitimate  spiritual  authority  —  was  mea- 

1  Cf.  Inge,  Christian  Mysticism,  pp.  216  sqq. 

2  Inge,  op.  cit.,  p.  222. 


THE  WITNESS   OP  THE  CHURCH         185 

sured  less  by  the  complexion  of  the  dominant 
dogma,  than  by  the  degree  in  which  believers 
had  experience  of  a  spirit  which  seemed  to  be 
the  medium  of  their  inclusion  with  the  divine. 
This  experience  might  become  exaggerated 
and  distorted  in  their  description  of  it;  it 
might  be  very  soberly  and  simply  portrayed ; 
widely  different  means  might  be  recommended 
to  others  as  likely  to  be  instrumental  in  intro- 
ducing them  to  the  same  saving  grace  or  know- 
ledge. All  these  things  were  of  relatively 
minor  import.  The  thing  that  gave  authority 
to  the  Church  —  Romanist,  Lutheran,  Re- 
formed —  was  the  fact  that  in  her  some  men 
found,  and  other  men  perceived  that  they 
found,  an  experience  which  proved  to  be  a 
practical  salvation.  It  was  an  experience  which 
can  be  described  only  as  an  illapse  of  a  spirit, 
not  their  own,  which  brought  them  into  unity 
with  the  source  of  life  and  goodness. 

As  though  to  remind  us  that  the  Dynamic 
of  Christianity  is  divinely  impartial  in  the  use 
of  its  instruments  and  loves  to  confound  little 
men  by  an  inclusiveness  which  they  can  neither 
understand  nor  stomach,  we  are  permitted  to 
see  this  same  phenomenon  in  the  Evangelical 
Revival  of  the  eighteenth  and  the  Tractarian 


186        THE  DYNAMIC   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

movement  of  the  nineteenth  century  in  Eng- 
gland.  More  delightful  essays  in  Ecclesiastical 
Biography  than  those  contained  in  Sir  James 
Stephen's  second  volume  bearing  that  title 
may  have  been  written  ;  and  sprightlier  ones 
than  those  in  which  Mr.  Augustine  Birrell  ex- 
ercises his  nimble  wit  upon  the  Protestant  Re- 
formation, Cardinal  Newman,  and  the  Chris- 
tian Evidences,  —  but  I  venture  to  doubt 
whether  they  have  been  published.  Both  these 
accomplished  laymen,  the  one  in  the  best  style 
of  the  Edinburgh  Reviewers,  the  other  in  the 
less  impressive  though  more  scintillant  manner 
of  the  later  English  journalism,  —  studying 
anything  with  Mr.  Birrell  is  a  little  like  view- 
ing a  landscape  by  the  light  of  rockets  and 
Roman  candles,  —  have  borne  witness  to  the 
profound  and  lasting  interest  exerted  by  reli- 
gious revival.  It  seems  to  be  one  of  the  things 
that  men  can  never  let  alone  for  very  long. 
They  must  hark  back  to  it,  if  for  no  other 
purpose  than  to  explain  to  themselves,  and 
incidentally  to  others,  that  it  is  not,  after  all, 
very  significant.  In  saying  this,  I  do  not  for 
a  moment  imply  that  Sir  James  Stephen  and 
Mr.  Birrell  are  to  be  numbered  among  those 
who  affirm  by  means  of  the  pains  they  take 


THE   WITNESS  OF  THE   CHURCH         187 

to  deny.  The  "  Evangelical  Succession  "  and 
"  The  Clapham  Sect "  are  tributes  of  honest 
respect  and  affection.  The  essays  of  Mr.  Bir- 
rell  upon  religious  leaders  and  movements  are 
as  reverent  and  affectionate  as  circumstances 
will  permit  them  to  be.  Both  bear  witness, 
however,  to  the  fact  that  in  the  revival  under 
Wesley,  Whitefield,  and  their  successors,  and 
in  the  counter-revival  under  Keble  and  New- 
man, something  came  to  pass  for  which  mere 
superficial  circumstance  fails  to  account.  We 
have  but  half  told  the  story,  when  we  have 
described  the  parsonage  of  Samuel  Wesley 
at  Ep worth  and  the  remarkable  family  that  it 
sheltered ;  or  the  inn  at  Gloucester,  and  the 
train  of  events  inaugurated  by  Whitefield's 
birth  there.  As  we  go  on  to  the  formation  of 
the  Methodist  society  at  Oxford,  the  meeting 
with  the  Moravians  on  the  voyage  to  Amer- 
ica, even  to  the  innumerable  marchings  and 
countermarchings  of  the  Great  Itinerant  over 
England,  the  preaching  to  the  Kingsbridge 
colliers,  the  stupendous  labors  as  author, 
editor,  translator,  organizer,  and  all  the  rest 
of  it,  we  are  still  conscious  that  we  are  in  the 
region  of  circumstance  rather  than  of  essence. 
What  we  behold  is,  after  all,  to  use  Mr.  Brier- 


188        THE  DYNAMIC  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

ly's  suggestive  phrase,  but  a  "  deposit  of  the 
Unseen."  1  The  end  of  the  Evangelical  Re- 
vival  was  little  less  than  social  revolution,  as 
we  trace  it  in  the  work  of  men  like  Wilber- 
force  and  Shaftesbury.  The  means  do  not 
seem  to  account  for  it. 2 

The  same  condition  fronts  us  as  we  examine 
the  so-called  Oxford  Movement,  which  bore  to 
the  Evangelical  Revival  a  relation  comparable 
to  that  connecting  the  Counter-Reformation 
with  the  Reformation  proper.  It  was  a  move- 
ment in  reaction  ;  but  it  was  also  a  movement 
in  advance.  It  damned  the  heretic  and  the 
schismatic;  but  it  caught  something  of  his 
fervor,  and  it  did  not  altogether  disdain  his 
methods.  A  wave  of  medievalism  swept  over 
Oxford.  There  was  an  awakening  of  interest 
in  Church  history ;  in  the  world-old  question 
of  the  sources  of  authority;  in  hagiology;  in 
the  Church  itself  as  an  institution ;  in  the 
significance,  and  especially  the  material  ad- 
juncts and  instruments,  of  worship.  In  short, 
it  was  a  revival  of  ecclesiastical  romanticism. 
The  leaders  were  men  of  singular  charm,  — 

1  J.  Brierly,  Studies  of  the  Soul. 

2  Note  also  the  repeated  references  to    Wesley   in   Sir 
George  O.  Trevelyan's  American  Revolution,  pt.  ii. 


THE   WITNESS  OF  THE   CHURCH         189 

the  charm  that  almost  always  results  when 
great  simplicity  of  life  and  manner  and  great 
willingness  to  serve  the  poor  and  humble  are 
joined  to  great  intellectual  subtilty  and  a 
hio-h  decree  of  intellectual  cultivation.  It  is 
safe  to  predict  for  Newman  a  long  vogue. 
Tract  XC  may  die,  —  is,  I  suppose,  dead,  — 
but  as  Mr.  Birr  ell  has  said,  it  is  almost  the 
only  bit  of  its  author's  writing  which  we  do 
not,  upon  thinking  of,  wish  to  sit  down  w7ith 
and  re-read.1 

Yet  it  is  hard  to  account  for  this  vogue 
upon  any  coldly  rational  basis.  Newman's 
dialectic  is  almost  preternaturally  trenchant 
and  agile.  The  reader  rejoices  in  him  as  in 
a  sleight-of-hand  performer  whose  processes 
seem  to  be  as  simple  and  legitimate  as  his  re- 
sults are  amazing,  —  but  he  is  a  sleight-of- 
hand  performer  still.  The  man  of  judicial 
temper  knows  that  the  platform  on  which  he 
stands,  and  the  apparently  simple  though 
really  complex  paraphernalia  which  he  brought 
in  with  him  at  the  beginning  of  the  perform- 
ance, are  genuinely  significant  features  of  it 
all.  The  whole  thing  is  implicit  in  them. 
With  Newman  the  premisses  are  everything, 

1  Res  Judicata,  Am.  ed.,  p.  151. 


190        THE  DYNAMIC   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

and  none  probably  knew  better  than  he,  that 
the  touch  of  a  German  scholar's  little  finger 
would  endanger  his  whole  theological  scheme. 
Yet  this  is  not  to  imply  that  Newman  was 
guilty  of  chicane.  He  was  the  exponent  of  a 
genuine  revival.  He  was  genuinely  possessed 
of  its  spirit.  With  genuine  singleness  of 
heart  he  sought  its  ends.  The  "  Apologia " 
is  a  true  Pilgrim's  Progress,  scarcely  less  fas- 
cinating than  Bunyan's  and  to  be  treated  with 
kindred  respect.  It  would  be  wrong  to  say  of 
the  men  whom  he  led  to  Rome  that  they  were 
perverts  of  his  dialectic  juggling,  although 
some  of  them  doubtless  fancied  themselves  to 
be.  The  majority  of  them  were  honest  con- 
verts to  the  reawakened  religious  spirit  which 
burned  with  so  unmistakable  a  flame  in  New- 
man's life.  This  spirit  was  genuine,  and  be- 
yond the  cavil  of  any  but  a  bigot.  The  ques- 
tion may  fairly  be  raised  whether  Hurrell 
Froude  —  to  cite  the  case  of  one  of  the  most 
brilliant,  enthusiastic,  and  short-lived  of  the 
Tractarians  —  did  not  effect  as  much  for  the 
cause  of  religious  progress  by  his  brief  and 
erratic  display  of  half -misguided  energy,  as 
he  could  have  done  had  he  dawdled  for  two 
or  three  score  years  over  the  walnuts  and  port 


THE   WITNESS   OF  THE   CHURCH         191 

of  an  Oxford  common  room,  keeping  a  more 
rational  faith  as  a  deposit,  but  never  adven- 
turing anything  in  its  behalf.  The  Oxford 
Movement  and  its  ritualistic  appendix  must 
be  judged  in  the  light  not  merely  of  its  irra- 
tional foundations  and  its  innumerable  acces- 
sory absurdities,  but  of  its  devotion  to  high, 
if  not  the  highest,  ideals,  its  practical  piety, 
and  its  work  among  the  poor. 

If  space  sufficed,  it  would  be  interesting  to 
continue  the  discussion  of  these  reawakenings 
of  the  religious  sense,  especially  as  they  have 
been  manifested  in  what  are  technically  called 
"  revivals  "  or  "  missions  "  in  Protestant  and 
Romanist  churches  alike.  The  great  awaken- 
ing of  the  eighteenth  century  in  New  Eng- 
land, the  revival  period  of  the  later  fifties  in 
the  nineteenth  century,  the  extraordinary  in- 
fluence exerted  through  such  men  as  Moody, 
Drummond,  and  a  host  of  humble  co-workers, 
as  the  century  drew  toward  its  close,  are  all 
phenomena  of  extraordinary  scientific  inter- 
est. Such  revivals  bear  every  sign  of  being 
saccular,  and  so  bound  to  recur.  They  speak 
of  a  Power  resident  among  men,  and  influen- 
cing them  daily  and  ordinarily.  They  speak 
further  of  a  purpose  and  endeavor  on  the  part 


192        THE  DYNAMIC   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

of  this  Power  not  to  rest  in  the  ordinary,  but 
to  reach  out  after  complete  dominion.  This 
dominion  is  established  by  quiet  and  imper- 
ceptible degrees  in  part.  It  is  no  less  truly 
advanced  by  great  and  sudden  conquests.  Its 
victories  are  won  often  by  seemingly  crude  and 
imperfect  means.  They  are  accompanied  by 
conflict  with  its  attendant  pains  and  penalties. 
Dust  and  confusion  sometimes  hide  the  result. 
Men  not  infrequently  mistake  the  incident  for 
the  essence,  the  circumstance  for  the  end,  in 
estimating  the  effects  of  such  religious  re- 
awakenings.  Yet  upon  the  whole,  the  history 
of  the  Christian  Church  would  seem  to  show 
it  to  be  under  the  influence  of  —  perhaps  it 
would  be  more  exact  to  say  the  crude  and  im- 
perfect instrument  of —a  Power  which  moves 
upon  bodies  of  men  as  a  will  makes  its  pre- 
sence felt  upon  subordinate  wills  —  not  dis- 
daining their  utterance  of  its  behests,  because 
the  behests  are  sometimes  misunderstood  and 
always  inadequately  interpreted,  nor  the  ser- 
vice of  their  hands,  because  the  things  the 
hands  build  are  made  of  wood,  hay,  and  stub- 
ble, as  well  as  of  silver  and  gold.  The  day  will 
declare  the  quality  of  the  structure,  and  the 
Spirit  is  patient. 


IX 

THE  WITNESS    OF    INDIVIDUAL 
EXPERIENCE 

In  the  last  chapter  we  discussed  the  evidence 
which  the  history  of  organized  Christianity 
affords  to  the  existence  of  some  Power  or 
Force  resident  among  men,  and  working  con- 
sistently and  patiently  through  their  crude 
religious  societies ;  disdaining  none  of  them, 
as  it  would  seem,  though  naturally  finding 
some  relatively  efficient  and  others  almost 
hopelessly  impracticable.  In  this  chapter  we 
propose  to  discuss  the  testimony  of  individ- 
ual experience  to  the  existence  and  imma- 
nence of  this  same  Power. 

A  high  degree  of  significance  attaches  to 
the  interest  aroused  by  the  recent  attempts 
of  the  so-called  "  new  psychologists  "  to  deal 
with  religious  phenomena,  especially  with 
the  phenomena  of  conversion.  Many  of  these 
attempts  have  been  crude  to  the  point  of 
absurdity.    None    of   them    has    been    really 


194        THE  DYNAMIC   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

adequate  and  satisfying.  The  method  of  the 
questionnaire,  with  its  invitation  to  introspec- 
tion, and  its  premium  upon  the  testimony  of 
exaggerated  self-consciousness,  has  been  ludi- 
crously overworked.  There  has  been  a  dis- 
tinct tendency,  too,  to  estimate  experience 
in  terms  of  the  extraordinary  and  abnormal. 
This  is  perhaps  the  chief  criticism  to  be 
made  upon  Professor  James's  "  Varieties  of 
Religious  Experience."  It  is  true  that  he  an- 
ticipates it  in  his  preface,  admitting  that  he 
has  "  loaded  his  lectures  with  concrete  exam- 
ples," and  that  he  has  "  chosen  these  among 
the  extremer  expressions  of  the  religious  tem- 
perament." No  one  who  reads  to  the  end  of 
his  lectures  —  and  most  who  begin  are  fain 
to  go  on  to  the  last  page  —  would  think  of 
accusing  their  author  of  intentionally  cari- 
caturing any  phase  of  religious  experience. 
Yet  in  point  of  fact,  the  impression  which 
they  leave  is  that  most  of  these  particular 
experiences  have  been  arranged  for  inspec- 
tion by  being  reft  from  their  proper  environ- 
ment, or  made  abnormally  significant  by  the 
introduction  of  elements  really  foreign  to 
them.  It  is  as  legitimate  as  it  is  convenient, 
when  examining  the  structure  of  a  slice  of 


THE  WITNESS  OF  EXPERIENCE  195 

tissue  under  the  microscope,  to  throw  its 
minute  conduits  into  high  relief  by  filling 
them  with  coloring  matter.  But  the  color 
which  is  so  essential  to  the  picture  is  none  the 
less  foreign  to  the  structure  of  the  tissue, 
and  is  bound  to  mislead  the  student  if  not 
duly  allowed  for.  Now  the  souls  which  lend 
themselves  best  to  the  purposes  of  the  psy- 
chologist's syllabus  are  almost  always  those 
whose  experiences  are  more  or  less  colored  by 
neurotic  temperament,  or  sentimental  habit, 
or  an  exaggerated  self-esteem.  These  acces- 
sories by  no  means  invalidate  the  reality  of 
their  religious  experience,  but  they  do  influ- 
ence it,  and  hence  are  liable  to  mislead  the 
casual  student  into  fancying  that  the  abnor- 
mal color  is  native  to  the  experience,  and 
one  of  the  notes  of  it. 

Yet  the  abnormal  has  significance  ;  and 
where  its  exceptional  character  is  due  to  the 
quantity  rather  than  the  quality  of  the  expe- 
rience, —  to  its  intensity  or  range  rather  than 
to  its  complexion,  —  the  significance  often 
possesses  very  great  and  immediate  value.  In 
reviewing  the  testimony  presented  in  such 
volumes  as  Professor  Starbuck's  "Psychology 
of  Religion/'  or  Professor  James's  "Varieties 


196        THE  DYNAMIC  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

of  Religious  Experience,"  one  is  impressed 
anew  with  the  truth  of  Schelling's  theory  of 
the  Iliad  and  the  Odyssey  of  the  human 
spirit.  "  The  spirit  has  its  Iliad,  its  tale  of 
struggle  with  brutal  and  natural  forces,  and 
then  its  Odyssey,  when  out  of  its  painful 
wanderings  it  returns  to  the  Infinite."  1  It  is 
well  said.  The  hidings  of  Homer's  power  lie 
in  the  fact  that  headstrong  Achilles  with  his 
sulkiness,  his  courage,  his  prowess  in  the 
field,  and  world-faring  Odysseus,  770X^77307705 
Kal  770X^777-19,  are  congenial  to  our  expe- 
rience. No  one  can  recall  the  pages  of  Au- 
gustine's "Confessions,"  or  Bunyan's  "Grace 
Abounding,"  without  a  glad  recognition  of 
their  genuine  epic  quality.  Indeed,  the  aver- 
age reader  may  very  well  go  further.  The 
most  casual  review  of  his  own  experience 
will  possibly  convince  him  that  his  spiritual 
struggles  and  the  wanderings  through  which 
he  went  before  finding  the  place  in  the  world 
meant  to  be  his  home  have  been  as  really 
epic.  The  range  and  scope  of  them  seem 
universal,  although  the  physical  man  himself 
may  very  likely  always  have  walked  a  nar- 

1  Cf.  Fairbairn,  The  Place  of  Christ  in  Modern  Theology, 
p.  212. 


THE  WITNESS  OF  EXPERIENCE  197 

row  round  ;  for  it  sometimes  chances  that  the 
soul  which  makes  its  nominal  dwelling-place 
in  a  home-staying  body  is  the  widest  and 
most  adventurous  traveler.  One  of  the  reasons 
why  clergymen  who  really  hold  and  use  the 
"cure  of  souls"  often  care  so  little  for  the 
theatre  is  that  the  tinsel  and  pinchbeck  of  its 
melodrama  seem  cheap  and  childish  beside 
the  genuine  comedy  and  tragedy  in  the  ex- 
perience of  human  hearts.  Farce  accords  well 
with  the  stage  and  justifies  itself;  but  serious 
acting  seems  thin  and  inadequate,  making  its 
appeal  primarily  to  the  man  of  small  imagina- 
tion, who  is  content  to  rest  in  the  form  and 
appearance  of  things. 

It  is  interesting,  and  I  think  significant, 
to  note  here  the  parallelism  between  this 
experience  of  the  human  soul  and  Hegel's 
philosophy  of  the  Trinity.  In  his  thought  of 
it,  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  was  neither  an 
invention  of  schoolmen,  nor  a  dogma  of  the 
Church,  nor  an  esoteric  mystery  whose  terms 
are  partially  and  miraculously  revealed  in 
Scripture,  but  a  form  under  which  the  divine 
must  exist  and  be  perceived  by  men.  This 
existence  is  known  to  us  first  as  pure  Being 
or  Thought.    Out  of  this  Being  is  eternally 


198        THE   DYNAMIC  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

generated  the  object  of  His  thought.  It  is 
the  Word  wherein  the  Father  utters  himself, 
—  of  one  substance  with  Him,  —  begotten, 
not  made.  But  the  Word -cannot  live  apart 
from  Him,  —  the  differentiation  is  not  a  sepa- 
ration, —  the  particular  is  never  to  be  set  in 
opposition  to  the  universal.  Hence,  in  the 
eternal  reconciliation  which  takes  place,  in 
the  continuous  and  necessary  return  of  the 
Son  to  the  Father,  in  the  retranslation  of 
the  Word  into  the  divine  Thought,  we  are 
face  to  face  with  the  movement  of  the  Spirit. 
This  vast  Iliad-Odyssey  cycle  is  a  universal 
experience.  All  true  life  of  necessity  —  and 
the  higher  the  life  the  more  cogent  the  ne- 
cessity —  passes  through  its  great  ssecular 
experiences  of  birth,  consciousness  of  indi- 
vidual and  hence  partial  existence,  and  return 
into  complete  union  with  its  source  again. 
So  far  forth,  the  deeper  experience  of  religion 
which  involves  conversion  in  the  technical 
sense  is  normal  and  to  be  expected.  This  does 
not  necessarily  mean  that  the  development 
of  spiritual  self-consciousness  and  the  process 
of  conversion  must  be  attended  with  pain ; 
it  certainly  does  not  mean  that  it  must  be  at- 
tended with  excitement.  But  men  being  what 


THE  WITNESS  OF  EXPERIENCE  199 

they  are,  it  is  morally  certain  that  both  anx- 
iety and  excitement  will  occasionally  appear ; 
precisely  as  pain  and  fear  too  often  prove  to 
be  the  accessories  of  physical  parturition.1 

Yet  however  grotesque  the  forms  which  the 
phenomenon  of  conversion  may  sometimes 
assume,  and  however  inadequate  the  scientific 
attempts  to  investigate  it  may  be,  the 
reality  of  the  phenomenon  itself  is  beyond 
dispute.  It  has  been  so  many  times  dissipated 
as  a  dream  of  overwrought  imaginations  only 
to  insist  again  upon  recognition,  that  the 
effort  to  get  rid  of  it  has  grown  wearisome. 
It  has  thriven  upon  persecution  ;  it  has  re- 
fused to  yield  to  ridicule  ;  it  has  held  its  own 
against  skepticism  ;  it  has  even  survived  in- 
difference and  contempt.  It  is  to  be  reckoned 
with    by  every  honest   student   of   religious 

1  Miss  Frances  Power  Cobbe  will  not  be  suspected  of  over- 
much complaisance  toward  conventional  religious  experience. 
Yet  in  this  comiection  the  reader  will  recall  her  lines  :  — 

11  God  draws  a  cloud  over  each  gleaming  morn, 
Would  you  know  why  ? 
It  is  because  all  noblest  things  are  born 
In  agony. 

11  Only  upon  a  Cross  of  pain  and  woe 
God's  Son  must  lie  ; 
Each  soul  redeemed  from  sin  and  death  must  know 
Its  Calvary." 


200        THE  DYNAMIC   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

phenomena;  and  it  has  its   message  to  the 
seeker  after  the  Dynamic  of  Christianity. 

What  this  significance  is  may  be  discerned 
by  considering  a  few  more  or  less  typical  in- 
stances of  conversion.  The  first  which  I  cite 
is  that  of  Henry  Alline,  the  Nova  Scotian 
evangelist,  whose  experience  is  related  at 
length  by  Professor  James.1  Alline  seems  to 
have  been  a  youth  of  distinctly  estimable  life, 
and  a  leader  among  his  fellows  in  the  enter- 
prises of  their  simple  and  rather  rude  society. 
Fond  of  games  and  dancing,  he  was  quickly 
susceptible  to  the  presence  and  opinions  of 
his  friends,  although,  as  sometimes  happens 
with  persons  of  neurotic  temperament,  the 
susceptibility  was  superficial  rather  than  fun- 
damental. He  was  influenced  to  temporary 
accord  in  matters  of  conduct,  rather  than  to 
a  like  way  of  thinking  or  to  a  like  scheme  of 
life.  It  was  into  the  midst  of  this  apparently 
gay  and  thoughtless  existence  that  conviction 
of  sin  forced  its  way.  Melancholy  came  with 
it.  Like  most  men  of  natural  strength  of 
character  and  keen  self-consciousness,  Alline 
strove  long  and  hard  to  hide  the  anguish  of 
his    soul   behind    an    untroubled   front.    He 

1  Varieties  of  Religious  Experience,  pp.  159,  173,  sqq. 


THE  WITNESS  OF  EXPERIENCE  201 

went  his  usual  ways,  led  his  fellows  in  their 
wonted  merriment,  —  taking  care  apparently 
that  it  should  always  be  innocent, — and  kept, 
as  he  says,  his  "  round  of  duties."  But  he 
knew  no  peace.  He  could  scarcely  find  sur- 
cease of  agony.  "  Still,  all  that  I  did  or  could 
do,  conscience  would  roar  night  and  day." 
The  crisis  came  on  the  26th  of  March,  1775, 
and  it  was  as  momentous  and  real  in  the 
sphere  of  individual  experience  as  the  date  of 
Lexington  or  Bunker  Hill  in  the  annals  of 
national  history.  It  had  been  a  day  of  thrice 
accentuated  pain.  Alline  had  come  in  from 
wandering  in  the  fields  and  lamenting  his 
miserable  estate,  when  his  eye  lighted  upon 
Psalm  xxxviii.  in  a  torn  Bible  which  lay  upon 
a  chair  near  by.  "  It  took  hold  of  me,"  he 
says,  "  with  such  power  that  it  seemed  to  go 
through  my  whole  soul."  After  a  little,  joy 
took  the  place  of  sorrow,  and  peace  —  if  a  joy 
which  rose  to  ecstasy  can  be  said  to  give 
peace  —  succeeded  to  anxiety.  The  question 
was  settled  forever.  There  was  never  again 
any  slightest  doubt  as  to  Whose  he  was  or 
Whom  he  served. 

Those  who  are  interested  and  expert   in 
nervous  pathology  will  mark  the  chronology 


202        THE   DYNAMIC   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

of  Alline's  experience,  —  the  profound  depres- 
sion at  sunset,  the  hyperesthesia  of  the  later 
evening,  and  the  fear  lest,  after  sleeping,  the 
depression  would  return.  The  sequence  is 
normal  and  doubtless  significant ;  but  it  ex- 
plains nothing.  Had  his  case  been  merely 
subjective  and  his  experience  naught  but 
the  unrest  produced  by  overwrought  nerves, 
we  should  expect  either  collapse,  or  a  return 
of  depression,  or  a  slow  and  gradual  recovery 
of  tone.  Nothing  of  the  sort  seems  to  have 
occurred.  Alline  went  through  a  crisis  of  the 
soul  as  real  and  definite  as  any  crisis  in  fever, 
and  through  much  sorrow  entered  into  joy. 
The  scientific  observer  is  almost  compelled, 
however  sorely  against  his  will,  to  have  recourse 
to  the  stated  religious  phrases.  Here  was  a 
return  home  after  long  wandering.  It  was  a 
new  birth  into  a  world  so  large  that  the  old 
world  became  relatively  insignificant.  The 
experience  bore  to  the  man  who  passed 
through  it,  and  it  bears  to  the  candid  student 
of  it,  all  the  marks  of  the  definite  influence  of 
one  personality  upon  another. 

I  cite  a  second  case,  differing  in  some  respects 
from  the  above,  which  fell  under  my  own 
observation.    It  was  that  of  a  boy  born  into,  a 


THE   WITNESS  OF  EXPERIENCE  203 

well-ordered  Christian  home.  His  training  was 
consonant  with  the  best  American  traditions. 
The  home  life  was  frugal,  busy,  and  highly 
intelligent.  Books  and  papers  were  abundant, 
and  the  greater  news  of  the  day  was  discussed, 
but  both  reading  and  talk  maintained  a  pretty 
clear  distinction  between  the  temporary  and 
the  permanent.  Although  the  family  resources 
were  not  so  large  but  that  strict  economy 
was  practiced  and  taught,  the  best  available 
school  and  university  advantages  were  put  at 
the  disposal  of  the  children.  Kegular  attend- 
ance upon  Church  and  Sunday-school  was 
enjoined,  yet  in  such  a  manner  as  to  make 
the  boy  feel  that  the  injunction  flowed  from 
the  conviction  rather  than  the  whim  or  the  pre- 
judice of  his  parents.  It  was  distinctly  repre- 
sented to  him  that  possession  of  the  whole 
world  would  prove  to  be  of  small  moment  to 
the  man  who  traded  the  life  of  his  soul  for  it ; 
and  that  the  truest  culture  of  the  soul  depended 
upon  personal  allegiance  to  Jesus  Christ.  The 
whole  trend  of  the  family  influence  went  to 
prove  life  to  be  an  immensely  solemn,  but  in 
no  sense  whatever  a  sombre  thing.  It  became 
sombre  only  when  some  element  of  dishonor 
in  its  relation  to  God  or  man  was  invited  into 


204        THE  DYNAMIC   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

it.  Much  was  made  of  the  cleanliness  of  mind, 
speech,  person,  and  blood,  to  which  a  hearty 
outdoor  life  of  work  and  play  ministers;  and, 
as  in  so  many  families  where  religion  sweetens 
the  temper  and  whets  the  sense  of  proportion, 
the  intercourse  of  the  home  was  lightened 
by  the  play  of  a  very  keen  and  abundant 
humor. 

It  was  in  the  midst  of  this  busy,  wholesome, 
and  singularly  unfettered  life  that  this  boy 
(as  I  have  heard  him  say)  grew  into  the  con- 
sciousness of  his  soul.  It  would  be  difficult  to 
enumerate  the  steps  whereby  he  realized  his 
own  individuality,  and  at  the  same  time  real- 
ized the  necessity  of  identifying  himself  with 
the  universal.  "  Lost "  is  distinctly  the  word 
to  be  used  in  any  attempt  to  describe  his 
situation.  It  connotes  nothing  Dantesque, 
but  rather  the  deep  concern  and  the  keen 
restlessness  of  a  child  astray  and  uncertain  of 
ability  to-  regain  his  home.  The  way  of  his 
duty  was  not  altogether  obscure,  but  it  was  a 
serious  question  whether  he  could  bring  him- 
self to  take  it,  involving  as  such  a  course 
threatened  to  do  some  slight  measure  of  pub- 
licity. The  Church  stood  before  him  as  repre- 
senting the  Family  of  Believers.     He  knew 


THE  WITNESS  OF  EXPERIENCE  205 

himself  to  be  a  believer.  The  battle  was 
fought  over  the  question  as  to  whether  or  not 
he  would  join  the  Family.  He  has  said  that 
he  sometimes  discussed  the  question  aloud 
"with  himself/'  as  the  phrase  commonly  goes, 
but  really  with  a  Presence  which  was  not  quite 
himself  objectified,  until  at  last  he  decided 
upon  his  course  of  action,  joined  the  Church 
upon  a  day  when  it  seemed  as  though  the  con- 
centrated gaze  of  men  and  angels  must  needs 
shrivel  his  small  soul,  —  and  entered  into 
peace.1  It  would  be  going  too  far  to  say  that 
this  peace  always  continued  unbroken.  There 
was  occasional  inward  conflict  over  minor 
matters  consequent  upon  the  main  decision, 
and  there  was  one  great  intellectual  struggle 
years  afterward  which  marked  the  life  and 
enriched  the  experience,  but  there  was  never 
any  real  questioning  of  allegiance.  The  later 
struggles  bore  to  the  former  a  relation  like 
that  of  the  War  of  1812  and  the  Rebellion 
to  the  War  of  Independence.  The  Revolu- 
tion ushered  in  a  new  national  life ;  the  later 
wars  were  activities  of  this  new  life  which 

1  The  writer  hopes  it  to  be  needless  to  say  that  this  expe- 
rience is  given  with  the  full,  albeit  hesitant,  consent  of  his 
friend. 


206        THE  DYNAMIC   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

only  developed  and  confirmed  it.  There  was 
something  of  proven  worth  to  fight  for;  as 
Odysseus  after  his  return  had  to  oust  the  suit- 
ors, but  found  his  arm  strengthened  for  the 
conflict  by  a  new  realization  of  his  home's 
value  and  essential  soundness. 

Still  another  variant  of  this  experience  is 
found  in  the  case  of  a  friend  of  the  late  Dr. 
K.  W.  Dale,  of  Birmingham.  Of  exemplary 
life,  and  reverent  in  his  attitude  toward  re- 
ligion, although  not  counting  himself  or 
counted  by  others  to  be  a  "  religious  "  man, 
his  "  call "  came  upon  a  quiet  Sunday  after- 
noon, as  he  lay  in  the  sunlight  upon  a 
high  down  overlooking  the  sea.  No  word 
but  "  call "  seems  equal  to  the  experience. 
Through  the  summer  stillness,  and  express- 
ing its  message  in  terms  of  peace  and  beauty, 
a  Voice  searched  his  heart.  It  was  in  some 
sort  consonant  with  Wordsworth's  voice  of 
the  sea :  — 

"  Listen !  the  mighty  Being  is  awake, 
And  doth  with  his  eternal  motion  make 
A  sound  like  thunder  —  everlastingly." 

Yet  it  was  a  gentler  and  a  more  compelling 
voice.  It  woke  a  soul  and  made  a  revela- 
tion.   The  man  in  a  real  sense  found  God 


THE  WITNESS  OF  EXPERIENCE  207 

that  day,  turned  toward  Him,  and  entered 
into  a  sacred  fellowship  which  gave  new  sig- 
nificance to  life. 

It  would  be  easy  to  multiply  instances,  and 
to  cite  among  them  startling  revolutions  of 
thought  and  conduct.  Professor  James  some- 
where  says  that  reasons  should  be  given  why 
men  do  pray  rather  than  why  they  should 
pray.  Prayer  is  a  phenomenon  worth  study. 
So  is  conversion,  whether  it  be  sudden,  vio- 
lent, and  easily  objectified  in  all  its  stages,  or 
so  gentle  and  gradual  as  scarcely  to  admit  of 
isolation  and  analysis.  I  have  chosen  to  cite 
instances  of  the  quieter  and  more  clearly 
rational  sort.  Fundamentally,  however,  they 
differ  but  little  from  the  revivalistic  and  (to 
use  Professor  James's  unpleasant  word)  orgi- 
astic type.  In  them  all  appears  the  conscious- 
ness of  self  as  somehow  distinct  from  the 
universal,  and  yet  belonging  to  the  uni- 
versal. An  appeal  is  made  to  the  soul  to 
return  to  its  source  and  home,  not  by  means 
of  surrender  of  individuality,  but  by  such  a 
yielding  of  the  will  as  shall  establish  perma- 
nent and  complete  harmony.  The  individual 
is  to  belong  to  and  share  in  the  life  of  the 
universal  as  the  branch  is  identified  with  and 


208        THE  DYNAMIC   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

shares  the  life  of  the  vine.  This  appeal  may 
be  voiced  in  terms  as  widely  different  as  the 
thunders  of  the  law  and  the  invitations  of 
grace ;  but  it  is  never  impersonal.  It  comes 
from  a  personal  source.  It  makes  direct  ap- 
peal as  from  a  person  to  a  person.  Not  infre- 
quently the  soul  in  its  perplexity  or  hesitation 
argues  with  "  itself "  aloud.  Yet  the  argu- 
ment is  not  really  with  itself.  The  protago- 
nist in  these  dramas  is  a  Person  distinct  from 
the  hesitant  and  fearful,  or  perhaps  obstinate, 
self.  Not  merely  a  power  but  a  Person,  not 
ourselves,  making  for  righteousness  is  felt  to 
be  dealing  with  us.  Nor  does  He  merely 
come  in  from  without  as  an  external  influ- 
ence. In  the  most  normal  cases  He  appears 
as  a  universal  Person  resident  within.  It  is 
in  the  abnormal  nature,  in  which  the  imma- 
nent forces  are  but  half -recognized  and  devel- 
oped, or  have  been  starved,  that  there  is  grave 
conflict  as  with  a  power  trying  to  force  the 
conquest  of  life's  citadel.1 

I  pass  on  now  to  note  another  phenomenon 
of  the  spiritual  life  scarcely  less  significant 
than  the  phenomenon  of  conversion.    Some 

1  Cf.  C.  C.  Everett's  essay  on  "Mysticism,"  in  Immortal- 
ity and  Other  Essays,  pp.  70-74. 


THE   WITNESS  OF  EXPERIENCE         209 

years  ago  the  writer  chanced  to  be  present  at 
a  religious  service  presided  over  by  a  man  of 
blameless  character  and  somewhat  rare  spirit- 
ual insight.  Most  of  those  whom  he  addressed 
were  clergymen.  The  theme  with  which  he 
set  himself  to  deal  was  the  consecration  of 
Christian  life.  His  scheme  of  religious  ex- 
perience appeared  to  be  something  as  fol- 
lows. A  man  was  to  expect  conversion  at 
some  period,  and  ought,  if  the  conversion 
were  normal,  to  be  able  to  designate  the 
time  of  it.  This  enrolled  him  as  a  Christian. 
Beyond  this  there  lay  a  Pentecostal  oppor- 
tunity. Its  relation  to  the  former  experience 
was  like  the  special  illapse  of  the  Spirit 
upon  the  Apostles,  as  compared  with  the 
original  call  which  Jesus  extended  to  them 
when  they  first  became  disciples.  This  was 
the  "  Second  Blessing,"  or  the  "  Baptism  for 
Service."  It  might  be,  indeed  it  ought  to  be, 
as  distinct  and  definite  an  experience  as  con- 
version. The  notes  of  it  were  the  incoming 
of  new  light,  the  baptism  with  new  power, 
and  the  perfect  assurance  of  acceptance.  It 
was  implied  —  though  the  speaker  was  him- 
self a  notably  humble  and  simple  man  —  that 
the  experience  gave  further   assurance  of  a 


210        THE  DYNAMIC   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

freedom  from  the  power  of  sin  that  ap- 
proached, if  it  did  not  attain  to  immunity. 
As  his  service  drew  to  a  close,  the  leader 
asked  all  those  among  his  hearers  who  had 
attained  to  this  experience  of  "  Baptism  with 
the  Spirit"  to  manifest  it  by  some  sign. 
They  were  almost  without  exception  devout 
and  faithful  men.  Yet  the  hoped-for  response 
to  this  invitation  came  from  but  one  person, 
and  he,  without  invidious  distinction,  might 
be  reckoned  among  the  lighter  and  less  force- 
ful of  the  company.  It  is  safe  to  say,  how- 
ever, that  no  one  present  failed  to  feel  some- 
thing of  the  significance  of  the  appeal.  The 
sincerity  and  simplicity  of  the  speaker  gave 
evidence  of  an  underlying  experience  which 
was  as  real  as  the  honesty  of  the  hearers 
who  declined  to  cram  their  own  experiences 
into  his  formula ;  but  it  was  equally  certain 
that  these  men,  most  of  whom  were  trained 
in  the  study  of  spiritual  phenomena,  declined 
to  accept  their  leader  of  that  day  as  a  guide 
into  a  universal  or  general  experience.  When 
he  spoke  of  a  spiritual  quickening  as  at  the 
instance  of  a  person  lending  power  and  grace 
to  human  life,  he  took  them  with  him.  This 
was   something   of   which    they   knew.    But 


THE   WITNESS  OF  EXPERIENCE         211 

when  he  attempted  to  treat  this  influence  as 
external  to  normal  Christian  life,  coming 
down  from  above,  and  leading  the  will  cap- 
tive until  the  subject  of  this  "  Second  Bless- 
ing "  became  a  mere  puppet  in  the  Spirit's 
hands,  they  balked. 

In  doing  so  they  represented  the  better 
sense  of  the  Christian  Church  in  every  age. 
Religion  of  the  most  spiritual  type  is  suspi- 
cious of  hierarchies  of  experience.  The  Spirit 
has  no  inner  circle  of  votaries.  He  is  imma- 
nent in  the  world  and  in  the  life  of  man.  All 
genuine  life  is  due  to  His  effort  to  express  His 
presence  and  to  accomplish  His  will  —  not 
from  without  but  from  within.  In  this  attempt 
He  daily  wrestles  with  obdurate  material. 
This  material  is  sometimes  so  obdurate  that 
the  Spirit  finds  Himself  incapable  under  pre- 
sent conditions  of  subduing  it.  It  will  not 
lend  itself  to  the  expression  of  divine  truth  in 
terms  of  goodness,  or  respond  to  revelation  in 
terms  of  love.  This  is  the  case  of  the  "  hard- 
hearted" man  —  the  man  who  will  not  yield. 
Sometimes  he  never  yields.  Sometimes  the 
obduracy  is  broken  down  by  the  shock  of 
catastrophe,  sometimes  it  is  softened  in  the 
fires  of  affliction,  until  it  lends  itself  to  the 


212        THE  DYNAMIC   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

formative  influences  of  this  indwelling  Power. 
Here  we  have  the  case  of  marked  and  perhaps 
spectacular  conversion. 

Again,  as  in  the  case  of  Alline,  it  is  pos- 
sible to  establish  a  category  of  conversions 
which  are  painful  to  the  subject,  but  not 
revolutionary  in  the  eye  of  the  world.  The 
struggle  here  is  of  a  sort  that  might  very 
well  be  borne  easily  by  a  coarser  nature ;  but 
the  material  with  which  the  Spirit  deals  is  of 
a  fine  and  sensitive  texture.  It  responds 
quickly  to  what  other  men  would  call  slight 
stimulus.  It  vibrates  long.  The  man  is  so 
highly  organized  that  he  is  immediately  and 
sometimes  painfully  conscious  of  spiritual  ap- 
peals to  which  his  fellows  are  blind  and  deaf ; 
very  much  as  the  receiver  of  a  Marconi  in- 
strument is  keenly  alive  to  influences  to  which 
everything  else  around  is  entirely  obdurate. 
Alline  was  like  a  man  who  is  conscious  that 
his  eye  has  capacity  to  see  the  rays  beyond 
the  violet,  but  who  dreads  to  open  it  to  the 
new  revelation,  or  to  develop  the  new  power, 
lest  the  well-known  actinic  properties  of  these 
rays  should  somehow  mark  and  change  him. 
The  battle  is  fought  out,  —  the  new  capacity 
insists  upon  recognition  and  exercise,  —  the 


THE  WITNESS  OF  EXPERIENCE  213 

natural,  conservative  elements  in  the  nature 
resist,  but  finally  yield,  and  at  once  the  man 
takes  on  power  and  enters  into  relative  peace. 
He  takes  on  power  because  he  sees  now  where 
other  men  are  blind.  He  finds  peace  because 
he  discovers  the  new  region  of  experience  to 
be  one  which  fits  his  capacities.  He  has  en- 
tered into  the  environment  to  which  he  is 
adapted,  that  is  to  say,  he  lives  in  the  scien- 
tific sense  of  the  word.  He  is  the  convicter 
and  inspirer  of  other  men  in  so  far  as  he 
leads  them  to  seek  a  higher  environment  to 
which  their  own  latent  powers  will  develop 
adaptability.  He  may  of  course  sometimes 
partially  misinterpret  the  message  which  has 
changed  his  own  life.  He  will  certainly  do  so, 
if  he  systematically  disparage  the  simpler  and 
more  commonplace  revelations  of  ordinary 
duty.  Few  men,  however,  who  pass  through 
a  great  experience  of  conversion  ever  do  this. 
They  realize  that  the  plain  is  as  necessary  as 
the  mountain  to  a  wide  field  of  vision.  The 
more  frequent  danger  is  that  they  may  sepa- 
rate the  two  regions  unduly,  and  attempt  to 
differentiate  the  principle  of  life  which  culti- 
vates the  plain  from  that  which  inspires  the 
vision  of  the  mountain-top. 


214        THE   DYNAMIC   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

Hence  the  latter  two  of  my  three  examples 
of  conversion  will  generally  be  accepted  as 
the  more  normal.  In  the  case  of  the  boy,  al- 
legiance to  the  higher  life  of  which  he  had 
grown  conscious  seemed  to  demand  specific 
and  definite  action.  His  general  training  had 
been  of  so  wholesome  and  devout  a  sort  that 
no  revolutionary  experience  was  demanded  of 
him.  He  was  invited  rather  to  take  the  con- 
sequences of  the  attainment  of  his  spiritual 
majority.  In  the  case  of  Dr.  Dale's  friend, 
the  call  was  couched  in  very  much  the  same 
terms ;  except  that  with  him  life  had  become 
settled.  It  was  a  well-ordered  and,  upon  the 
whole,  practically  devout  life.  He  was  simply 
asked  to  recognize  and  own  the  divine  source 
of  it. 

It  may  well  be  asked  whether  such  cases 
as  these,  and  the  ten  thousand  variants  upon 
them  which  might  easily  be  cited,  will  submit 
themselves  to  the  rule  of  the  evolutionary 
hypothesis.  Does  their  process  accord  with 
the  scheme  of  development  ?  The  question  is 
a  perfectly  fair  one  and  should  be  welcomed. 

In  the  first  place,  few  of  those  who  have 
studied  psychical  phenomena  without  preju- 
dice will  venture  to  deny  that  conversion  of 


THE   WITNESS  OF  EXPERIENCE         215 

the  genuine  and  thorough  sort  is  a  step  in 
development.    It  generally  marks  a  deepening 
and  enrichment  of  experience,  and  an  increase 
of  power.    The  converted  man,  however  hum- 
ble and  restricted  in  cultivation,  means,  and 
knowledge  of  the  world,  is  a  larger  man  by- 
reason  of   his   genuine  "  experience  of  reli- 
gion."   Moreover,  this  development,  where  it 
is  genuine,  is  due  to  a  resident,  or,  as  I  should 
much  prefer   to  say,   immanent   force.    The 
governing  influence  is  not  an  external  power 
mechanically   applied,    but    one   whose    seat 
seems  rather  to  be  within.  As  has  been  noted 
before,  the  man's  struggle  is  commonly  said 
to  be  "with    himself. "    Yet  it  is   as  when 
Jacob  struggled  with  the  angel,  who  repre- 
sented divine  life   and  truth  translated  not 
only  into  human,  but  into  Jacobean  terms. 
Jacob's  wrestling  was  with  the  personification 
of  his  own  conscience  —  the  not-himself  in 
himself,  which  made  for  righteousness.    So 
the  struggle  of  which  converted  men  often 
speak  is  with  something  more  than  mere  ob- 
jectified self.    They  have  met  and  striven  with 
the  divine  principle  resident  or  immanent  in 
self. 

Moreover,    the   development  which   takes 


216        THE  DYNAMIC   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

place  under  the  influence  of  this  power  in  the 
phenomenon  of  conversion  is  from  incoher- 
ence to  coherence.  Conversion  normally  makes 
for  the  integration  of  life  in  the  individual 
and  in  society.  It  is  a  return  of  the  son  who 
wanders  to  his  place  in  the  home.  It  is  a 
restoration  of  the  lost  sheep  to  its  orderly 
position  in  the  flock.  It  is  a  gathering  of 
the  disjointed  and  heterogeneous  individuals 
who  live  selfishly  and  perhaps  in  strife,  into 
a  family  where  they  shall  feel  toward  one 
another  as  brethren.  These  are  stereotyped 
terms  ;  but  they  accord  so  well  with  expe- 
rience as  to  survive  the  process.  They  be- 
come common  without  ceasing  to  be  sacred, 
which  is  good  proof  that  they  express  a 
truth  that  is  vital  —  how  vital  appears  only 
when  we  set  the  picture  teaching  of  Jesus 
beside  the  polysyllabic  definition  of  Spen- 
cer,1 and  observe  that  the  definition  of  life 
wrought  out  by  the  philosopher  seems  but  a 

1  In  saying,  this  I  am  not  unmindful  of  the  limitations 
of  the  Spencerian  definition  of  Evolution  and  the  extreme 
vagueness  of  some  of  its  terms.  Since  the  present  chapter 
was  written,  we  have  been  again  reminded  of  this  by  Pro- 
fessor James's  exceedingly  clever,  albeit  somewhat  cavalier, 
review  of  Spencer's  Autobiography  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly 
for  July,  1904.  By  "  integration  "  I  mean  the  development 
(or  reestablishment)  of  organic  unity. 


THE  WITNESS  OF  EXPERIENCE  217 

translation  of  the  idea  which  lay  at  the  centre 
of  Christ's  teaching.  Jesus  distinctly  taught 
that  life  in  the  Kingdom  of  God  was  life  de- 
veloped from  fragmentariness  to  unity  under 
the  impulse  of  a  force  resident  or  immanent 
among  men ;  and  that,  moreover,  this  life 
should  bear  the  note  of  eternity  because  of  its 
power  to  adapt  itself  to  environment.  It  was 
the  life  fitted  to  dominate  and  feed  upon  cir- 
cumstance instead  of  being  subdued  to  circum- 
stance's whim.  It  could  distinguish  between 
accident  and  essence,  moulding  itself  to  the 
divinely  essential,  and  in  turn  moulding  the 
merely  accidental. 

One  of  the  fundamental  doctrines  taught 
by  the  founder  of  Christianity  was  the  pre- 
sence of  the  Spirit.  The  divine  Essence  was 
with  men,  making  personal  revelation  of  Him- 
self to  their  understandings,  and  personal  ap- 
peal to  their  hearts  and  wills.  This  divine 
life  in  the  heart  of  a  man  and  in  the  heart  of 
society  was  not  in  any  sense  alien  to  the  prin- 
ciple of  life  which  appears  in  what  we  call  the 
physical  or  material  universe.  The  Power 
which  works  in  the  processes  of  nature,  or  ex- 
presses its  thought  in  terms  which  we  formu- 
late into  the  theorems  of  geometry  or  the  well- 


218        THE   DYNAMIC  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

attested  laws  of  physics,  is  fundamentally 
One.  The  resident  or  immanent  Force  which 
moves  in  the  evolutionary  process,  and  forms 
the  central  element  in  our  definitions  of  Evolu- 
tion, is  identical  with  the  Power  not  ourselves, 
making  for  righteousness,  which  students  of 
the  phenomena  of  conduct  are  obliged  to  as- 
sume. We  are  driven  to  ascribe  to  this  Power 
certain  attributes  which  are  personal.  Now 
when  we  come  to  the  experience  of  the  de- 
veloping human  soul,  we  find  ourselves  in 
immediate  touch  with  a  Power  which  we 
know  to  be  personal  in  precisely  the  same 
way  in  which  we  recognize  personality  in  the 
men  and  women  about  us.  We  do  not  need 
to  clothe  a  bare  idea  in  a  suit  of  attributes 
in  order  to  know  a  man  when  we  meet  him. 
Like  in  us  speaks  to  like  in  him,  and  the 
knowledge  is  immediate.  So  with  the  Ultimate 
Force  or  the  Universal  Life  with  Whom  our 
souls  have  to  do.  We  deal  with  Him  as  with 
a  person,  by  an  instinct  so  quick  and  compel- 
ling as  to  make  the  processes  of  logic  seem 
slow  and  cumbrous.  These  processes  of  logic 
are  not  ruled  out.  Any  region  whither  they 
cannot  come  is  likely  to  prove  an  unwhole- 
some residence  for  men's  souls.    But  they  are 


THE  WITNESS  OF  EXPERIENCE  219 

here  as  guests  rather  than  as  servants.  Like 
sappers  and  miners  parading  a  well-paved 
city  street,  they  are  honorable  and  necessary 
folk ;  but  not  likely  to  be  pressed  into  ser- 
vice, because  the  way  is  so  clear  that  no  trav- 
eler can  well  err  in  it. 

This  Dynamic  of  Christianity  in  the  indi- 
vidual life  is  the  Spirit  of  God.  He  is  known 
by  those  who  have  had  deepest  spiritual  expe- 
rience as  essentially  a  Person,  however  varied 
may  be  their  attempts  at  definition.  He  is  a 
resident  or  immanent  Force.  His  residence 
makes  for  development.  Under  His  influence 
the  individual  at  his  best  and  highest  feels 
that  he  is  at  once  more  and  less  than  an 
individual.  The  man  realizes  himself  to  be 
a  member  of  another  —  he  comes  out  from 
God.1  The  Spirit's  residence  also  tends  toward 
universal  harmony.  Under  His  influence  in- 
dividuals are  led  to  perceive  their  mutual 
relations  and  to  fulfill  their  social  duties. 
They  adapt  themselves  to  the  needs  of  the 
common  life.  They  tend  under  His  continued 
guidance  to  perceive  the  ultimate  unities  of  a 
real  universe.     They  know  at  last  that  the 

1  C.  C.  Everett,  Immortality  and  Other  Essays,  pp.  62  sqq. 


220        THE  DYNAMIC   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

Ultimate  Force  of  the  philosopher,  and  the 
resident  force  of  the  physicist  and  biologist, 
and  the  immanent  Spirit  of  the  theologian, 
are  but  different  names,  representing  differ- 
ent glimpses,  of  one  God. 


THE  NEW  FREEDOM  OF  FAITH 

When  Christianity  appeared  and  began  to 
claim  the  allegiance  of  men,  it  held  out  two 
definite  promises  to  them.  One  was  the  pro- 
mise of  freedom;  the  other  the  promise  of 
peace.  Jesus  told  His  disciples  that  they 
should  know  the  truth,  and  the  truth  should 
make  them  free.  He  compared  their  freedom 
to  that  which  a  loyal  son  enjoys  in  his  father's 
house,  where  he  is  not  bound  by  petty  rules 
or  ordinances,  but  is  recognized  as  an  heir 
and  prospective  owner,  who  has  right  and 
claim  to  the  reasonable  use  of  the  resources  and 
opportunities  of  the  home.  Moreover,  when 
Jesus  pronounced  His  benediction  upon  those 
who  were  to  carry  on  His  work,  it  took  the 
highly  significant  form  of  the  salaam  —  the 
ascription  of  peace.  If  the  heritage  whieh  He 
was  leaving  to  them  meant  anything,  it  was 
that  they  had  no  longer  cause  to  fear  circum- 
stance.    Their  hearts  were  no  longer  to  be 


222        THE  DYNAMIC  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

troubled.  They  were  never  again  to  be  afraid. 
They  were  not  of  the  world,  and  the  world 
could  harm  none  but  its  own.  Beyond  the 
world  they  had  no  cause  to  fear,  because 
the  mansions  of  the  Father's  house  awaited 
them. 

It  is  to  be  noted,  however,  that  this  freedom 
was  not  to  be  conferred  upon  the  disciples  as 
a  deposit  which  they  could  hoard  up  and  draw 
upon.  They  were  not  to  be  taken  out  of  the 
world  or  isolated  from  the  play  of  human 
vicissitude.  Their  freedom  and  their  peace 
were  to  come  through  the  possession  of  the 
truth ;  and  into  the  truth  the  Spirit  was  to 
lead  them.  He  was  to  take  up  His  home  in 
them,  abide  permanently  with  them,  speak 
through  their  lips,  and  work  by  means  of 
their  hands ;  but  in  particular  He  was  to  en- 
due them  with  adequacy  to  circumstance. 
The  disciple's  freedom  and  peace  were  to  be 
of  the  dynamic  sort,  like  the  freedom  of  a  well- 
found  ship  at  sea,  or  the  splendid  confidence 
of  an  eagle  in  the  air.  Neither  is  a  spoiled 
favorite  of  nature.  The  "attraction  of  gravi- 
tation "  stands  ready  to  sink  the  ship  or  dash 
the  eagle's  life  out  against  the  earth  beneath. 
The  storm  lifts  up  its  hand  against  both  alike. 


THE  NEW  FREEDOM  OF  FAITH  223 

Yet  both  are  so  well  fitted  to  their  several  ele- 
ments that  they  translate  the  threat  of  gravi- 
tation into  terms  of  stability,  and  make  the 
power  of  the  storm  serve  them,  whether  they 
scud  before  it,  or  beat  up  against  it  to  their 
desired  haven. 

St.  Paul  took  up  the  same  doctrine  and  incor- 
porated it  into  all  his  greater  Epistles.  The 
believer  was  the  true  freeman.  He  was  deliv- 
ered from  the  bondage  of  precept  and  custom 
that  he  might  live  his  life  according  to  its  real 
nature,  moulding  its  activities  to  the  norm  of 
a  perfect  man.  This  was  not  to  be  by  giving 
free  play  to  passion  and  fleshly  desire.  To 
give  the  body  free  rein  was  to  turn  life  up- 
side down,  to  submit  to  tyranny  of  the  most 
degrading  sort,  and  to  invite  an  internecine 
war  in  the  members.  The  life  which  was  to 
be  free  and  peaceful  must  be  free  from  the 
dominion  of  sin  and  the  fear  of  death ;  that 
is  to  say,  it  must  possess  a  resident  or  imma- 
nent force  capable  of  adapting  its  activities 
to  its  circumstances  in  the  interests  of  harmo- 
nious and  consistent  existence.  It  was  to  go 
on  through  life  and  death,  things  present  and 
things  to  come,  subjecting  circumstance  to 
the  synthetic  chemistry  of  the  Spirit's  touch, 


224        THE  DYNAMIC  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

which  could  extract  from  seemingly  base 
things  the  materials  for  the  nourishment  of 
abiding  life.  This  was  not  necessarily  to  be 
an  easy  process ;  but  it  was  to  be  so  sure  a 
process  for  the  man  who  really  opened  his 
life  to  the  entrance  of  the  efficient  Power  as 
to  relieve  him  of  fear  and  to  clothe  him  with 
peace.  The  presence  of  the  Spirit  was  not  to 
involve  such  a  usurpation  of  the  agencies  of 
a  man's  personality  as  to  render  him  immune 
against  temptation  or  free  from  blunders. 
The  best  material  which  he  could  put  at  the 
Spirit's  disposal  was  likely  to  remain  more  or 
less  obdurate  and  intractable  ;  but  there  could 
be  no  question  about  the  ultimate  success  of 
life  unless  the  man  deliberately  chose  to  be  a 
traitor.  St.  Paul  felt  so  great  a  confidence 
in  his  own  committal  of  himself  to  One  Who 
held  the  secret  of  eternal  life,  that  anxiety 
about  the  casual  incidents  of  earthly  experi- 
ence seemed  almost  absurd. 

Principal  Fairbairn,  in  criticising  the  Nicene 
theology,  has  said  that  "  the  Church,  when  it 
thought  of  the  Father,  thought  more  of  the 
First  Person  in  relation  to  the  Second  than  of 
God  in  relation  to  man ;  when  it  thought  of 
the  Son,  it  thought  more  of  the  Second  Per- 


THE  NEW  FREEDOM  OF  FAITH  225 

son  in  relation  to  the  First  than  of  humanity 
in  relation  to  God."  !  He  might  have  added 
that  the  Church  then  and  since  has  failed  to 
think  of  the  Spirit  at  all.  Christ's  fear,  when 
He  told  the  disciples  that  it  was  expedient  for 
Him  to  go  away  lest  the  Comforter  or  Helper 
come  not,  has  been  in  some  measure  realized. 
Men  have  been  wont  to  think  of  the  Spirit  as 
a  divine  influence  coming  into  a  man's  heart 
from  a  God  who  dwelt  without,  or  let  down 
upon  the  world  from  a  God  who  dwelt  above, 
—  an  influence  sometimes  with  men  and  some- 
times absent,  sometimes  at  work  in  the  world 
and  sometimes  quiescent  or  withdrawn.  They 
have  thought  of  Him  as  bringing  freedom 
from  sin  by  some  cryptic  process,  and  con- 
ferring peace  as  a  sort  of  spiritual  commodity 
to  be  dealt  out  to  Heaven's  favorites.  They 
have  undertaken  to  define  His  "  office-work," 
to  hedge  His  path,  and  straitly  mark  His 
goings  and  methods.  So  technical  and  stilted 
have  been  their  phrases  relative  to  His  pre- 
sence and  activity  in  the  world,  that  the  com- 
mon sense  of  many  men  has  revolted.  They 
have  come  to  think  of  the  doctrine  of  the 
Spirit  as  out  of  relation  to  common  life,  and 

1  The  Place  of  Christ  in  Modem  Theology,  p.  91. 


226        THE  DYNAMIC  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

to  be  handed  over  as  a  peculiar  possession  to 
the  revivalist,  or  to  the  fanatical  followers  of 
obscure  sects.  Men  easily  lose  vital  faith  in 
the  power  which  manifests  itself  solely  or 
mainly  in  extraordinary  ways.  They  really 
believe  in  the  forces  which  are  steadfast,  con- 
tinuous, and  applicable  to  the  concerns  of 
every  day  and  every  man  "  by  sun  and  candle 
light."  Hence  it  was  with  a  deep  insight  into 
human  nature  that  Jesus  economized  His  mir- 
acle working.  Here  too  has  lain  the  hidings 
of  Christianity's  power.  More  than  any  other 
religion  it  has  shown  the  necessary  interde- 
pendence of  faith  and  good  works  —  religion 
and  righteousness.  Its  central  truths  have 
always  been  translatable  into  common  good- 
ness. Its  general  influences  have  been  ex- 
oteric instead  of  esoteric ;  they  have  made 
for  a  community  instead  of  a  hierarchy  of 
disciples ;  they  have  resolutely  refused  to  be 
cabined  or  confined  within  definite  organiza- 
tions or  statements  of  faith.  They  have  always 
been  restless  unless  their  course  were  free  and 
their  opportunity  universal.  Nowhere  has  this 
been  truer  than  in  the  realm  of  the  world's 
thought  concerning  the  Spirit.  Nowhere,  on 
the  other  hand,  has  doctrine  been  more  dis- 


THE   NEW  FREEDOM   OF   FAITH  227 

torted  and  belittled.  Nowhere  has  it  assumed 
more  fantastic  shapes  or  subserved  such  fanatic 
purposes.  So  far  has  this  gone,  that  there  has 
come  to  be  grave  danger  lest  the  teaching 
which  Jesus  seemed  definitely  to  regard  as  the 
great  doctrine  of  the  future  —  the  doctrine  of 
the  growth  of  the  Kingdom  under  the  direc- 
tion of  the  Spirit  —  should  be  relegated  to  the 
limbo  of  the  irrational. 

What  has  been  written  in  this  volume  is 
a  protest  against  such  a  belittling  of  truth. 
Vital  doctrine  is  truth  which  is  capable  not 
only  of  being  seized  with  rapture  by  the  im- 
agination, but  of  being  apprehended  in  some 
good  degree  by  the  reason  and  then  translated 
into  terms  of  conduct.  The  doctrine  of  the 
Spirit  is  of  this  sort.  In  its  imperfect  form  as 
the  doctrine  of  the  immanence  of  God,  it  has 
long  made  its  appeal  to  the  imagination.  It 
has  seemed  good  to  men  to  think  of  God  as  near 
at  hand  and  not  afar  off.  But  even  when  they 
have  thought  of  Him  as  immanent,  it  has  too 
often  been  the  presence  of  a  royal  guest  in  a 
temporary  residence  which  could  never  be  his 
home  that  they  have  pictured.  "  God  in  His 
world  "  has  represented  a  divine  influence  in 
partibus  infidelium.    There  is  still  an  unnat- 


228        THE  DYNAMIC   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

ural  separation  between  the  universe  and  its 
soul. 

The  Christian  doctrine  of  the  Spirit  would 
fain  relieve  the  human  reason  of  this  seeming 
contradiction.  Great  doctrines  are  great  by 
reason  of  the  clearness  with  which  they  discern 
and  define  distinctions,  as  well  as  by  the  co- 
gency with  which  they  resolve  apparent  con- 
tradictions and  coordinate  separate  realms  of 
knowledge  and  experience  by  their  unifying 
power.  No  doctrine  can  hope  to  solve  all  mys- 
tery or  answer  all  conceivable  queries.  That 
doctrine  is  most  vital,  and  has  the  best  claim 
upon  the  faith  of  reasoning  men,  whose  hori- 
zon of  mystery  incloses  the  largest  area  of 
consistency.  It  is  upon  this  basis  that  the 
doctrine  of  the  Spirit,  as  Christ  taught  it, 
may  lay  claim  to  apprehension  by  man's  rea- 
son as  well  as  to  the  stimulation  of  his  im- 
agination. It  makes  due  distinction  between 
wl^at  we  call  "  the  material  universe "  and 
God.  But  it  unifies  our  knowledge  by  perceiv- 
ing the  Spirit  to  inhabit  the  universe  as  an 
immanent  and  vital  Force.  He  is  the  soul  of 
it.  So  far  from  coming  to  consciousness  in 
the  personality  of  man,  His  own  personality 
is  the  ground  and  source  of  all  feeling,  know- 


THE   NEW  FREEDOM   OF  FAITH  229 

ledge,  and  will.  His  presence  is  discerned  by 
the  component  elements  of  the  universe  in 
varying  degree.  What  we  rather  blindly  call 
"  dead  matter  "  knows  His  presence  as  force. 
Gravitation  is  God's  revelation  of  His  presence 
to  a  stone.  The  beasts  know  His  presence  so 
far  as  their  experience  can  translate  the  so- 
called  forces  of  nature  into  terms  of  their 
partial  life.  Man  knows  Him  not  only  as  force, 
though  He  is  the  source  of  it ;  nor  as  will, 
though  all  will  grounds  its  power  of  initiative 
and  choice  in  Him ;  but  as  a  Person,  exercis- 
ing supreme  reason  in  an  orderly  realm,  and 
exercising  it  in  love,  since  its  object  appears 
to  be  the  coordination  of  all  things  into  a 
real  universe;  and  love  has  no  higher  office 
than  the  satisfaction  of  the  right  desires  of 
all  living  beings  by  putting  them  into  such 
relations  with  one  another  that  they  shall  en- 
joy freedom  and  be  crowned  with  peace. 

How  far  short  of  entering  into  their  her- 
itage here  believers  often  come  is  suggested 
by  the  most  casual  study  of  the  phenomena  of 
religious  melancholy.  Good  people  who  knew 
their  faith  to  be  genuine  have  sometimes 
doubted  with  an  awful  seriousness  whether  it 
were  saving  faith  or  not.    No  one  else  ques- 


230        THE   DYNAMIC   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

tioned  their  title  to  discipleship.  But  a  dread- 
ful cloud  of  uncertainty  as  to  the  validity  of 
their  "  calling  and  election  "  shut  the  sunlight 
from  their  sky.  Different  immediate  causes 
for  such  unhappiness  appear  to  govern  differ- 
ent cases.  Yet  the  general  ground  of  their 
misfortune  would  seem  to  he  a  view  of  God 
that  made  Him  practically  impersonal.  There 
was  no  question  in  their  minds  about  His 
power  in  the  universe,  and  they  would  have 
been  the  first  to  deprecate  any  denial  of  His 
reason  and  His  love.  But  in  point  of  fact  He 
was,  in  their  thought  of  Him,  little  more  than 
the  originator  and  engineer  of  a  divine  scheme. 
As  interpreted  into  terms  of  human  experi- 
ence, His  will  was  mechanical.  Between  the 
heart  of  God  and  the  need  of  man  there  was 
interposed  the  barrier  of  a  device  for  saving 
men  which  wrought  with  a  terrible  certainty, 
but  with  a  no  less  terrible  aloofness  from  the 
circumstances  of  common  human  life.  Much 
was  made  of  the  work  of  Christ;  but  here 
too  the  forms  of  speech  used  in  its  descrip- 
tion were  largely  impersonal  —  forensic,  if 
not  mechanical.  There  must  needs  be  a  set 
and  formal  procedure  on  the  part  of  him  who 
would  avail  himself  of  Christ's  sacrifice,  and 


THE  NEW  FREEDOM  OF  FAITH  231 

it  was  possible  that  through  ignorance  or  mis- 
fortune some  man  might  miss  a  step  in  the 
process  and  so  invalidate  the  whole.  Chris- 
tians still  sometimes  come  perilously  near 
thinking  and  speaking  of  God  as  a  being 
from  whom  Christ  came  to  deliver  them. 

It  needs  but  a  re-reading  of  the  Gospels 
to  show  how  far  removed  this  is  from  any 
teaching  that  Jesus  ever  uttered.  It  was 
impossible  that  men  should  come  to  their  in- 
heritance of  freedom  and  peace  by  any  such 
way  as  this.  His  thought  of  conversion  and 
the  life  of  Christian  service  was  that  men 
were  to  be  the  subjects  of  an  experience 
rather  than  the  objects  of  a  process.  That 
experience  was  to  be  an  opening  of  the  soul's 
eyes  to  God's  immediateness,  and  a  yielding 
of  the  will  to  the  influences  of  a  divine  com- 
panionship. The  knowledge  of  God  as  an 
Holy  Spirit  was  to  crown  all.  God  was  to  be 
known  as  Creator.  That  was  a  necessity  of 
reason.  He  was  to  be  known  as  translated 
into  terms  of  love,  truth,  and  service  in  Christ. 
That  was  a  fact  of  human  history.  But  the 
knowledge  of  Him  as  a  sacred  and  satisfying 
Person,  daily  meeting  human  needs  by  em- 
powering and  adapting  men  to  their  circum- 


232        THE  DYNAMIC  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

stances  in  the  interests  of  an  eternal  life,  was 
to  be  an  intimate  and  vital  experience.  By 
introducing  them  into  this  the  Son  was  to  set 
them  free.  The  servant  was  to  become  the 
friend,  and  the  faith  of  the  believer  to  be 
lost  in  the  sight  of  the  companion. 

It  is  in  the  light  of  this  truth,  shining  upon 
our  experience  of  religion  and  illuminating 
our  scientific  investigation  of  religious  phe- 
nomena, that  the  real  ground  of  theological 
progress  appears.  True  science  is  more  than 
logical ;  it  is  biological,  taking  account  of  a 
developing  rather  than  a  completely  developed 
world.  A  theological  system  whose  watch- 
word is  "  back  to  Christ  "  is  both  unscientific 
and  anti-Christian.  The  word  which  Jesus  left 
the  Church  for  the  guidance  of  its  life  was 
not  "  back  to  Me,"  but  "  on  with  the  Spirit." 
There  was  nothing  in  His  teaching  to  justify 
any  attempt  to  cram  the  life  of  the  second  or 
of  the  twentieth  century  back  into  the  lan- 
guage or  the  experience  of  the  first.  No  forms 
which  he  established  were  fixed.  Everything 
was  elastic.  Only  certain  great  vital  principles 
were  implanted  like  leaven  in  the  world's 
life.  This  did  not  for  a  moment  imply  that 
the  life  of  the  future  was  to  be  disorganized 


THE  NEW   FREEDOM  OF  FAITH  233 

and  abnormal.  It  was  most  distinctly  to  sub- 
mit itself  to  law.  But  the  law  was  to  be  the 
law  of  the  immanent  Spirit's  highly  organ- 
ized and  endless  life  rather  than  the  norm  of 
an  outgrown  ordinance  or  dead  formula. 

It  remains  to  point  out  some  of  the  results 
of  this  neglected  truth  when  it  is  realized  and 
translated  into  terms  of  life. 

1.  It  makes  a  man  at  home  in  the  Present. 
This  is  not  to  say  that  it  gives  him  a  sense  of 
the  sufficiency  of  the  Present  to  supply  all  the 
needs  of  his  soul ;  but  it  does  deliver  him  of 
the  haunting  sense  that  he  is  born  out  of  due 
time.  No  one  can  read  religious  poetry,  or 
the  extensive  and  always  significant  literature 
of  religious  autobiography,  without  noting 
the  degree  in  which  men  have  looked  back 
with  pensive  regret  to  some  golden  "  age  of 
faith,"  or  on  with  longing  to  some  millennium. 
This  backward  aspect  is  depicted  in  many 
forms,  from  the  nursery  hymn,  — 

"  I  think  when  I  read  that  sweet  story  of  old," 

to  Newman's  exquisite,  but  highly  imagina- 
tive picture  of  mediaeval  piety  in  England, 
beginning,  "  The  fair  form  of  Christianity 
rose  up  and  grew  and  expanded  like  a  beau- 


234        THE  DYNAMIC   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

tiful  pageant  from  North  to  South/' 1  On 
the  other  hand,  the  longing  for  the  future  is 
voiced  in  the  great  mediaeval  hymns,  — 

"  O  mother  dear,  Jerusalem," 

and 

"  The  world  is  very  evil, 

The  times  are  waxing  late; 
Be  sober  and  keep  vigil, 
The  Judge  is  at  the  gate." 

Indeed,  this  latter  habit  of  representing  the 
present  world  to  be  a  vale  of  tears,  and  our 
experience  in  it  as  not  merely  a  probation  but 
a  dubious  and  sorry  one,  has  been  so  frequent 
among  hymn  writers  as  seriously  to  mar  some 
of  our  older  hymn  books.  One  suspects  resig- 
nation of  having  achieved  an  undue  eminence 
among  the  Christian  virtues.  But  it  should 
be  remembered  that  this  dissatisfaction  with 
present  circumstance  and  suspicion  of  the 
future  among  confessed  believers  is  as  no- 
thing when  compared  with  the  lamentations 
of  the  "  agnostics  "  and  the  doubters.  The 
late  Mr.  Lecky's 

"  How  hard  to  die,  how  blessed  to  be  dead," 

has  been  quoted  in  an  earlier  chapter. 

1  Quoted  at  some  length  by  Fisher,  History  of  the  Chris- 
tian Church,  p.  236. 


THE   NEW   FREEDOM   OF  FAITH  235 

"  The  pageant  of  his  bleeding  heart "  which 
Matthew  Arnold  ascribed  to  Byron  might  as 
well  be  treated  as  autobiography.  He  loved 
to  think  of  himself  as 

"  Wandering  between  two  worlds,  one  dead, 
The  other  powerless  to  be  born." 

In  thus  making  his  moan,  Matthew  Arnold 
expressed  a  mood  entirely  consonant  with  re- 
ligious doubt,  but  it  is  never  natural  to  faith. 
It  is  to  be  noted,  however,  that  the  partial 
faith  which  would  rule  God  out  of  natural  resi- 
dence in  His  world,  and  take  no  account  of  a 
divine  Spirit  immanent  in  man  and  working 
out  His  will  by  slow  degrees  in  a  developing 
universe,  has  often  produced  an  identical 
suspicion  of  the  Present  as  somehow  thrust 
in  anomalously  between  a  past  whose  life  is 
dead  or  dying  and  a  future  which  no  man 
can  determine,  but  which  must  be  anticipated 
with  anxiety. 

To  all  this  Christ's  doctrine  of  the  Spirit 
is  antipathetic.  The  man  who  has  had  ex- 
perience of  the  world's  vital  principle  at 
work  in  the  development  of  the  universe,  and 
most  manifestly  at  work  in  the  development 
of  the  human  soul,  will  be  at  home  in  the 
Present.    He  will  be   no  shallow  proclaimer 


236        THE  DYNAMIC   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

or  exploiter  of  the  present  as  the  best  of 
all  possible  worlds.  On  the  contrary,  he 
must  believe  a  better  world  to  be  possible 
to-morrow  unless  the  material  with  which  the 
Spirit  has  to  work  be  so  obdurate  that  the 
pain  of  its  subjection  to  the  new  and  higher 
purpose  prove  great  enough  to  hide  the  fact 
of  progress.  He  will  remember  that  the  pro- 
cesses of  increase  and  development  are  secu- 
lar. They  observe  periods  which  can  be  more 
or  less  clearly  discerned.  There  are  spring- 
times of  lush  growth,  midsummers  when 
growth  halts  that  maturity  may  hasten, 
autumns  when  fruits  of  development  are 
garnered  for  translation  into  new  forms  of 
energy,  and  winters  when  all  progress  seems 
to  be  suspended  —  winters  of  man's  discon- 
tent, but  which  are  none  the  less  times  of 
especial  susceptibility  to  new  impressions. 
The  seasons  of  the  Spirit  are  often  long. 
They  change  so  slowly  that  one  man's  single 
day  shows  little  progress.  But  it  is  only  the 
pitiably  short-sighted  man  who  will  therefore 
deny  the  progress,  or  fancy  that  its  verbs 
have  no  present  tense.  "  God  has  so  arranged 
the  chronometry  of  our  spirits  that  there 
shall  be  thousands  of  silent  moments  between 


THE  NEW  FREEDOM   OF  FAITH  237 

the  striking  hours."  *  This  is  the  true  Oppor- 
tunism of  Christianity.  By  means  of  the  im- 
manence of  divine  Power  a  believing-  man  is 
not  only  made  equal  to  circumstance ;  he 
becomes  its  master  ;  he  feeds  upon  it,  and 
assimilates  it.  It  is  this  that  makes  him  at 
home  in  the  Present,  and  reveals  the  deeper 
significance  of  the  old  pagan  maxim  "  Carpe 
diem ; "  of  the  Hebrew  half-threat,  half- 
promise,  "I  will  feed  them  with  judgment; " 
and  of  the  Christian  assurance,  "  All  things 
work  together  for  good  to  them  that  love 
God." 

2.  This  larger  and  more  definite  doctrine 
of  the  Spirit  gives  a  wholesome  elasticity  to 
Christian  institutions.  It  provides  room  for 
growth  in  creeds,  worship,  sacraments,  and 
polity.  Now,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  there  has 
always  been  growth  and  development  here ; 
but  to  those  who  held  to  the  doctrine  of  exact 
delimitation  of  Christian  faith  by  Christ  and 
the  Apostles,  or  of  an  original  "  deposit  of 
faith  "  in  the  treasury  of  the  Church,  or  to  the 
establishment  of  a  norm  of  church  govern- 
ment in  the  first  century  to  which  all  true 
church  organization  in  later  centuries  must 

1  Martineau,  Tides  of  the  Spirit. 


238        THE  DYNAMIC  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

conform  itself,  such  development  has  seemed 
anomalous  and  puzzling.  It  is  interesting  to 
note  the  unanimity  with  which  ultra-orthodox 
and  ultra-heretic  have  agreed  that  doctrine 
which  has  been  developed  and  whose  process 
of  evolution  can  be  shown  is  thereby  invali- 
dated as  authority.  Here  Romanist  and  Uni- 
tarian have  met  together ;  Burgon  and  Huxley 
have  kissed  each  other.  Yet  it  needs  only  a 
casual  reading  of  the  Gospels  and  Epistles  to 
show  that  such  development  is  implicit  in  the 
very  nature  of  Christianity.  The  divine  ele- 
ment was  to  be  resident  among  believing  men, 
always  at  work  upon  the  more  or  less  obdu- 
rate material  which  they  presented,  moulding 
their  experience  of  religion  into  new  creedal 
expressions,  reorganizing  their  corporate  life 
in  the  Church,  and  ever  assuring  them  anew 
of  the  power  of  initiative  with  which,  as  beings 
made  in  the  image  of  the  Creator,  they  were 
intrusted.  This  means  that  sometimes  old 
forms  are  to  pass  completely  away,  as  the 
observance  of  circumcision  and  the  Jewish 
ritual  have  passed.  It  also  means  that  quite 
as  often  old  forms  will  be  retained,  but  that 
they  will  express  a  developed  and  therefore 
varied  message.    This  is  particularly  true  with 


THE  NEW  FREEDOM  OF  FAITH  239 

reference  to  creeds.  Every  creed  that  has  ever 
commanded  the  allegiance  of  devout  and 
earnest  men  is  from  that  very  fact  a  sacred 
symbol.  The  Church  of  England  does  well  to 
retain  her  Calvinistic  Articles,  though  she 
ought  not  to  require  absolute  subscription  to 
them.  She  does  well  to  set  beside  these  her 
Arminian  liturgy,  although  again  she  may  go 
too  far  in  requiring  the  absolute  subjection  of 
the  service  of  public  worship  to  it.  These  are 
less  contradictory  than  complementary  of  one 
another.  Their  presence  in  the  Prayer  Book 
relates  the  faith  of  the  sons  logically  and  le- 
gitimately to  the  faith  of  the  fathers ;  but  it 
ought  never  to  do  so  in  such  a  way  as  to  imply 
that  the  faith  of  the  sons  is  not  at  liberty  to 
profit  by  the  additions  and  enrichments  of 
three  and  a  half  centuries  of  revelation. 

So  again  with  reference  to  the  language 
of  the  creeds.  It  has  been  held  that  but  one 
interpretation  could  possibly  be  put  upon  any 
given  phrase  in  a  creed,  and  that  whatsoever 
was  more  than  this  savored  of  dishonesty. 
But  it  is  impossible  to  confine  human  speech 
within  such  fetters.  Language  will  not  sub- 
mit to  this  slavery.  Take/  for  instance,  the 
clause  in  the  Apostle's  Creed  relating  to  the 


240        THE  DYNAMIC  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

Resurrection  of  the  Body.  Upon  the  wall  of 
WickliflVs  old  church  in  Lutterworth  there 
is  a  fresco  of  the  Resurrection  in  which  bones 
are  flying  through  the  air  to  meet  their  fellows, 
as  though  Ezekiel's  Vision  were  in  process  of 
literal  fulfillment.  It  stands  for  the  crude 
literalism  of  an  unscientific  day.  A  scientific 
day  ought  therefore  to  discard  both  the  crude 
notion  and  the  form  of  words  which  it  misin- 
terpreted, some  men  would  say.  What,  then, 
is  a  modern  believer  to  do  ?  He  holds  in- 
stinctively to  a  faith  in  a  life  beyond  the  grave. 
Proceeding  upon  his  rational  and  spiritual 
principle  that  he  is  under  obligation  to  accept 
the  hypothesis  whose  horizon  of  mystery 
includes  the  largest  area  of  consistency,  he 
believes  that  this  life  is  to  be  of  the  nature 
of  personal  existence.  I  shall  still  be  I,  then 
as  now.  This  means  that  the  necessary  appara- 
tus and  instruments  of  personal  existence  and 
some  sort  of  personal  efficiency  must  be  sup- 
plied. What  these  may  be,  we  do  not  under- 
take or  care  to  define ;  but  they  represent 
exactly  the  office  of  the  body.  It  is  doubtful 
if  any  form  of  words  could  possibly  be  devised 
which  could  so  cogently  express  the  essence 
of  this  great  hope  as  those  of  the  Apostle : 


THE  NEW  FREEDOM  OF  FAITH  241 

"  We  are  sown  a  natural  body,  we  are  raised  a 
spiritual  body."  The  clause  in  the  Creed,  "  I 
believe  in  the  Resurrection  of  the  Body/'  is  a 
paraphrase  of  this.  It  is  patient  of  several 
interpretations.  No  doubt  the  average  wor- 
shiper in  Lutterworth  Church  when  the  fresco 
was  fresh  upon  its  walls  thought  this  material- 
istic interpretation  of  the  clause  to  be  the  only 
valid  one.  But  is  his  crude  and  irrational 
notion  to  bind  all  later  ages?  Let  us  admit 
that  in  his  day  the  words  meant  what  the 
picture  portrays,  and  that  he  would  have  felt 
himself  to  be  forcing  them  out  of  their  nor- 
mal use  in  supposing  them  to  mean  anything 
else.  The  spiritual  body  of  which  the  Apostle 
speaks  might  very  well  mean  to  him  only  a 
body  of  flesh  and  bones,  somehow  sanctified 
and  made  immune  against  pain,  age,  and 
death.  It  is  quite  as  true,  however,  that  to-day, 
among  intelligent  people,  the  natural  sense  of 
the  Apostle's  words  and  the  Creed's  echo  of 
them  seem  to  be  different.  We  do  not  care 
to  deny  that  the  clause  is  patient  of  the  Lut- 
terworth parishioner's  interpretation,  but  we 
should  say  that  it  required  a  large  exercise 
of  its  patience.  A  better  Biblical  exegesis  and 
a  larger  acquaintance  with  the  physical  frame- 


242        THE   DYNAMIC   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

work  of  the  universe  make  a  different  inter- 
pretation of  the  words  seem  to  be  the  natural 
and  reasonable  one ;  and  this  fact,  so  far 
from  invalidating  the  clause  or  proving  its 
unworthiness  to  find  place  in  a  great  symbol 
of  Christian  faith,  adds  rather  to  its  signifi- 
cance. 

It  is  right  that  the  creed  of  a  spiritual  faith 
should  be  thus  elastic  and  patient  of  such  va- 
riation in  the  meaning  of  its  terms  as  increased 
revelation  demands ;  because  a  creed  is  not  an 
exact  and  ultimate  definition  of  knowledge. 
It  is  an  endeavor  to  voice  experience,  past, 
present,  and  to  come.  It  is  a  statement  of  a 
hope,  or  an  hypothesis,  or  a  conviction,  which 
makes  such  appeal  to  the  minds,  hearts,  and 
wills  of  those  who  confess  it  as  to  induce  them 
to  accept  it  as  the  norm  of  life,  and  to  attempt 
its  translation  into  terms  of  conduct.  It  is  by 
no  juggling  with  words  that  the  man  of  the 
Middle  Ages  and  the  man  of  the  twentieth 
century  are  enabled  to  confess  their  faith  in 
a  future  life  in  the  same  terms.  Both  use  the 
word  "  body."  Both  express  the  same  inex- 
pugnable faith  in  some  conscious  and  efficient 
life  beyond  death.  The  difference  in  the  in- 
terpretation of  the  words  which  they  employ 


THE  NEW  FREEDOM  OF  FAITH  243 

to  utter  their  religious  conviction  is  no  whit 
greater  than  the  difference  which  would  exist 
in  their  interpretation  of  the  same  word 
"body"  when  used  in  its  ordinary  physical 
sense,  in  view  of  the  progress  which  the  cen- 
turies have  brought  us  in  anatomy  and  physi- 
ology. 

It  is  into  the  expectation  of  such  change  in 
Christian  symbols  as  this  that  the  true  Dy- 
namic of  Christianity  introduces  us.  It  makes 
us  at  home  in  the  present  theological  and 
religious  terminology,  assuring  us  that  it  is 
but  an  instrument  of  expression  to  be  used, 
added  to,  filled  fuller  of  meaning,  as  under 
the  omidance  of  the  resident  divine  Force  in  us 
Christian  experience  expands.  One  secret  of 
the  influence  of  the  Bitschlian  school  in  Ger- 
many lies  in  their  recognition  of  this  fact. 
Instead  of  attempting  to  treat  all  theological 
symbols  as  exercises  in  technical  definition, 
they  have  endeavored  to  see  beneath  the  form 
of  them  the  vital  experience  which  they  at- 
tempt to  portray ;  and  in  their  preaching 
and  teaching  they  have  striven  to  reinterpret 
its  value  to  the  world.  This  is  at  once  the 
rational  and  the  spiritual  method.  In  the 
process  of  it  some  phrases  and  symbols  are 


244        THE  DYNAMIC   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

doomed  to  pass  away  altogether.  They  are 
those  which  are  merely  formal ;  husks,  which 
never  held  a  kernel  or  a  germ.  Such  symbols, 
creeds,  and  institutions  as  have  expressed  ex- 
perience are  likely  to  abide.  Some  will  be 
kept  because  of  their  historical  significance ; 
but  more  because  they  still  speak  to  the  heart ; 
and  when  their  terms  are  reinterpreted  in  the 
light  of  later  revelation,  they  prove  their  power 
to  utter  the  deep  things  of  the  Spirit. 

This  same  freedom  to  live  in  the  present 
and  to  adapt  Christian  activity  to  its  needs  is 
conferred  upon  the  Church.  Comparatively 
young  men  can  remember  when  churches  of 
different  orders  made  much  of  the  apostolic 
sanction  upon  their  respective  forms  of  organi- 
zation and  government.  Congregationalists 
sought  to  prove  the  autonomy  of  the  individ- 
ual congregation.  Presbyterians  were  instant 
in  their  claims  that  the  early  Church  knew, 
loved,  and  used  the  elder  and  the  presbyter. 
Episcopalians  cherished  the  apostolic  succes- 
sion of  their  bishops.  While  Baptists  claimed 
the  distinction  of  observing  one  of  the  sacra- 
ments as  they  believed  the  early  Church  ob- 
served it.  All  appealed  to  the  New  Testament 
and  more  or  less  to  the  Fathers.    All  —  with 


THE  NEW  FREEDOM  OF  FAITH  245 

the  possible  exception  of  the  Episcopalians, 
who  had  perhaps  the  best  case,  but  spoiled  it 
by  claiming  too  much  —  succeeded  in  substan- 
tiating a  considerable  part  of  their  claims. 
Yet  in  the  light  of  Christ's  teaching  concern- 
ing the  Spirit  all  are  ruled  out  of  court,  not 
because  the  question  of  Church  organization 
is  unimportant,  but  because  the  first  century 
does  not  claim  jurisdiction  in  the  matter. 
Granting  the  Congregationalisms  claim  to  au- 
tonomy, as  proven  in  the  practice  of  the  early 
Church,  he  is  still  at  liberty  to  ordain  a  bishop 
and  an  archbishop  if,  in  the  clearest  light 
which  the  Spirit  sheds  upon  past  experience 
and  present  circumstance,  bishops  and  arch- 
bishops seem  best  adapted  to  advance  the 
Kingdom  of  God.  The  Baptist  may  go  on 
immersing  usque  ad  Tubam,  if  he  please,  but 
if  he  be  a  true  disciple,  his  practice  ought  to 
base  itself  upon  present  expediency  and  adap- 
tation to  the  will  of  God  and  the  need  of  men 
to-day,  rather  than  upon  mere  conformity  to 
the  first  century's  fashion.  The  Episcopalian 
will  do  well  to  cherish  and  reverence  his 
bishops  just  so  far  as  they  serve  the  Spirit's 
need  and  help  the  Kingdom's  advance.  He 
will  lay  as  little  stress  upon  the  form  of  apos- 


246        THE  DYNAMIC   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

tolic  succession  as  may  be,  for  while  the  fact 
would  have  a  certain  historical  significance  if 
it  could  be  proven,  it  would  carry  no  ultimate 
authority.  Appeal  would  still  lie  to  the  divine 
Presence  in  the  Church  as  foretold  by  Jesus, 
but  so  often  forgotten  by  His  disciples. 

3.  This  Dynamic  of  Christianity  delivers  us 
equally  from  the  fear  and  the  pride  of  Reason 
by  exalting  it  into  its  true  place  as  a  chief 
agent  and  instrument  of  the  divine  Spirit  in 
man.  I  doubt  not  that  some  orthodox  reader 
of  this  chapter,  if  any  have  been  patient  and 
venturesome  enough  to  go  so  far  with  me, 
will  lay  the  book  down  in  disgust  with  the 
sweeping  verdict  that  it  is  nothing  but  a  plea 
for  rationalism.  On  the  contrary,  it  aims  to 
set  forth  a  very  sure  defense  and  refuge 
from  that  barren  rationalism  which  sometimes 
tries  to  identify  itself  with  Christianity,  and 
sometimes  is  its  open  or  secret  foe.  English 
Deism  in  the  eighteenth  century  was  essen- 
tially rationalistic.  New  England  Calvinism 
passed  through  stages  of  experience  when  it 
was  scarcely  less  so ;  and  fundamentally,  in- 
deed, Calvinism  is  a  rationalistic  scheme.  Uni- 
tarianism  of  the  higher  and  dryer  type  has 
found  its  effectiveness  hampered  by  the  same 


THE  NEW   FREEDOM   OF  FAITH  247 

blight ;  while  German  rationalism  was  long  a 
name  wherewith  to  conjure  an  evil  spell  both 
in  England  and  America  —  not  without  some 
justification. 

With  the  theory  of  rationalism  the  Chris- 
tian need  have  no  quarrel  for  reasons  to  be 
set  forth  in  the  concluding  chapter  upon  the 
Harmonies  of  Revelation.  Toward  its  most 
common  practices,  however,  he  is  right  in  main- 
taining a  pretty  consistently  hostile  attitude ; 
because  with  few  exceptions,  rationalism  has 
found  its  main  employment  in  criticism.  It 
has  often  gone  so  far  as  to  turn  the  office  of 
Reason  completely  upside  down,  giving  to  the 
criticism  of  notions  the  chief  place  which 
should  be  reserved  for  the  interpretation  of 
experience.  By  a  fine  instinct  the  mass  of 
plain,  every-day  thinkers  are  sure  to  discover 
and  to  revolt  against  this  treatment.  The 
typical  rationalist  is  like  a  too  anxious  parent, 
who,  for  fear  his  child  should  incur  risk  of 
infection  or  over-exertion,  feeds  him  on  a 
meagre  diet  of  sterilized  food  and  distilled 
water,  while  laying  an  embargo  on  sun,  air, 
and  exercise.  Unconsciously  he  exalts  the 
bacillus  or  microbe  into  a  god,  and  becomes  its 
prophet,    proclaiming   his    devil-worship    far 


248        THE  DYNAMIC   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

and  wide ;  his  boy  meanwhile  growing  anae- 
mic and  rickety  under  this  negative  regime, 
unless  he  have  natural  strength  enough  to 
revolt  against  it  and  burst  its  shackles ;  in 
which  case  he  is  likely  to  go  to  the  other 
extreme  and  become  intolerant  of  ordinary 
hygienic  precautions.  So  the  rationalist  is 
forever  probing  the  natural  food  upon  which 
men  have  stayed  their  spiritual  hunger  for  the 
germs  of  superstition,  and  urging  his  fellows 
to  abstain  from  religious  work  and  worship 
until  the  validity  of  all  they  do  has  been  sub- 
mitted to  a  court  of  inquiry.  The  only  gospel 
in  which  he  really  believes  is  a  writ  of  quo 
warranto.  He  exerts  his  influence,  and,  let 
it  be  added,  almost  always  serves  his  day, 
though  in  a  very  partial  and  negative  fashion. 
None  the  less,  his  day  must  be  a  short  one, 
simply  because  man  craves  generous  suste- 
nance for  life,  and  looks  to  find  it  in  the  kindly 
fruits  of  the  Spirit,  while  all  the  rationalist 
has  to  offer  is  the  sterilized  product  of  his 
syllogistic  machine.  Men  trust  their  common 
sense  and  the  guidance  of  ordinary  experience 
to  purge  their  faith  of  casual  and  incidental 
error,  very  much  as  they  trust  their  digestive 
organs  to  reject  and  excrete  such  elements  in 


THE  NEW  FREEDOM  OF  FAITH  249 

their  generally  wholesome  food  as  are  ill 
adapted  for  assimilation.  The  man  who  would 
refuse  to  entertain  or  act  upon  a  religious 
faith  until  he  was  absolutely  sure  that  it  had 
been  cleansed  of  every  element  of  error, 
would  be  as  unwise  as  he  who  should  refuse 
to  eat  until  convinced  that  every  ingredient 
of  his  food  could  be  at  once  taken  up  by  the 
body  and  transformed  into  tissue. 

Against  such  folly  the  voice  of  the  divine 
Resident  in  human  life  has  always  protested. 
Human  Reason  is  one  aspect  of  that  image 
of  the  divine  in  man  which  testifies  to  his 
sonship.  It  is  a  bond  of  union  between 
God  and  man.  It  is  the  means  whereby  man 
interprets  experience  and  makes  revelation 
intelligible.  The  mind  and  the  heart  are  twin 
apostles.  Like  Paul  and  Apollos,  one  plants 
and  the  other  waters,  but  God  gives  the  in- 
crease of  knowledge  and  love.  The  growth 
in  experience  toward  which  the  offices  of  both 
tend,  and  to  which  they  are  practically  in- 
dispensable, comes  from  Him.  Neither  is  an 
infallible  agent.  Each  is  set  to  test  the  other's 
work.  Each  is  a  servant  of  the  Spirit ;  or  to 
speak  more  exactly,  the  activity  of  Reason 
is  but  a  form  or  aspect   of   the  activity  of 


250        THE  DYNAMIC  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

the  resident  divine  Force,  struggling  for  re- 
union with  its  source.  It  is  fallible,  because 
the  human  conditions  which  the  Spirit  re- 
spects, and  the  human  speech  which  He 
consents  to  use,  and  the  human  will  whose 
autonomy  He  guards  as  a  sacred  thing,  are  all 
inadequate  and  partial  when  measured  by  the 
task  which  is  set  them.  Hence  it  comes  to 
pass  that  the  modern  sin  against  the  Holy 
Ghost  is  likely  to  take  two  apparently  con- 
tradictory forms.  He  is  in  danger  of  com- 
mitting it  who  contemns  Reason  as  though  it 
were  in  some  sense  hostile  to  Revelation,  dis- 
trusting its  verdicts  and  banishing  it  from 
the  temple  as  though  at  its  best  estate  it 
could  approach  only  so  far  as  some  court  of 
the  Gentiles.  On  the  other  hand,  he  is  in 
equal  danger  who,  interpreting  Reason  to  be 
a  sort  of  logic-chopping  faculty,  yet  sets  the 
servant  above  his  lord,  by  making  its  dogmas 
supreme  and  bounding  all  human  experience 
by  the  limits  of  its  sway.  Life  may  be 
maintained  for  considerable  periods  within  a 
stockade  of  syllogisms,  but  it  can  never  be 
adequately  nurtured  there.  Under  such  con- 
ditions it  is  likely  to  be  dwarfed  on  one  side 
and  abnormally  developed  on  the  other.    The 


THE  NEW  FREEDOM  OF  FAITH  251 

refusal  to  test  the  results  of  the  dialectical 
faculty's  activity  by  Christian  experience  is 
as  narrow  and  subversive  of  sound  scientific 
doctrine  as  the  refusal  to  test  other  revela- 
tions by  the  verdict  of  the  Reason.  The  man 
who  recognizes  the  Force  resident  in  human 
life,  and  speaking  through  the  human  Rea- 
son, as  one  with  the  Power  which  reveals 
Himself  to  the  conscience  and  the  heart, 
founds  the  house  of  his  faith  upon  the  rock, 
where  no  flood  of  seeming  contradiction  is 
ever  likely  to  rob  him  of  his  freedom  or  his 
peace. 

4.  It  follows  from  what  has  just  been  said 
that  such  a  doctrine  of  the  Dynamic  of 
Christianity  must  rid  us  of  all  fear  of  the 
results  of  historical  or  philosophical  criticism  ; 
nor  can  the  believer  in  it  well  be  confounded 
by  any  new  discovery  in  any  field  of  science. 
This  fear  has  always  been  unworthy,  but 
never  quite  unnatural.  The  man  whose  faith 
is  comprehended  and  defined  by  the  limits  of 
a  system  must  needs  look  with  apprehension 
upon  all  criticism  of  it,  and  especially  upon 
any  discovery  which  may  threaten  to  develop 
facts  incompatible  with  its  integrity.  But  the 
man  who  is  living  a  life  wherein  a  divine 


252        THE  DYNAMIC   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

Force  is  resident  sees  in  every  new  result  of 
criticism  simply  a  summons  to  partial  re- 
arrangement of  the  material  of  experience, 
and  in  every  new  discovery  simply  a  new  and 
welcome  opportunity.  The  progress  of  sci- 
ence, physical,  historical,  critical,  delights  and 
animates  him.  It  is  a  challenge  to  his  love 
of  adventure.  Even  when  it  has  happened  — 
as  was  the  case  during  the  latter  half  of 
the  nineteenth  century  —  that  the  material 
wrought  out  by  investigators  and  discoverers 
was  so  great  as  far  to  exceed  his  power  to  coor- 
dinate it,  he  suffers  from  no  fear,  but  simply 
as  one  embarrassed  by  the  multitude  of  rather 
crude  riches.  He  realizes,  if  he  be  a  man  of 
genuine  spiritual  insight,  that  he  is  living 
in  a  season  of  luxuriant  growth,  and  that  a 
period  of  development  and  maturity  is  bound 
to  follow  it.  So  far  from  being  fearful  of 
the  outcome,  the  soul  that  feels  the  Dynamic 
of  Keligion  will  experience  the  exhilaration 
of  the  pioneer  looking  out  upon  a  newly 
discovered  region,  which  must  be  explored, 
mapped,  and  subdued  to  the  use  and  residence 
of  men. 

Face  to  face  with  the  recent  scientific  ad- 
vance, and   the  necessity  of  answering  the 


THE  NEW  FREEDOM  OF  FAITH  253 

soul's  questions  about  it,  men  may  very  well 
have  been  smitten  into  silence  for  a  time. 
None  but  the  man  of  little  faith,  however,  is 
described  in  Matthew  Arnold's  lines  :  — 

"  The  kings  of  modern  thought  are  dumb  ; 
Silent  they  are,  though  not  content, 
And  wait  to  see  the  future  come. 
They  have  the  grief  men  had  of  yore, 
But  they  contend  and  cry  no  more." 

The  silence  of  the  man  of  positive  faith  in  the 
Soul  of  the  Universe  is  of  the  nobler  type 
of  Keats :  — 

"  Then  felt  I  like  some  watcher  of  the  skies 
When  a  new  planet  swims  into  his  ken; 

Or  like  stout  Cortez  when  with  eagle  eyes 
He  stared  at  the  Pacific,  and  all  his  men 

Look'd  at  each  other  with  a  wild  surmise 
Silent  upon  a  Peak  in  Darien." 

5.  This  Dynamic  of  Christianity  confers 
the  freedom  of  faith  upon  every  man  who 
faces  toward  truth  and  travels  sturdily  in 
its  direction.  Here  again  it  ministers  to  the 
possession  of  that  peace  which  Christ  be- 
queathed to  His  disciples.  A  more  adequate 
discussion  of  this  corollary  of  Christ's  teach- 
ing concerning  the  Spirit  in  the  world  must 
be  referred  to  the  concluding  chapter.  Let  it 
suffice  here  to  say  that  this  is  by  no  means 


254        THE  DYNAMIC   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

to  baptize  a  cheap  and  trivial  doctrine  of  uni- 
versalism  or  eclecticism  into  the  name  of 
Christ.  It  is  rather  to  remember  the  deeper 
significance  of  Jesus'  own  attitude  toward 
truth.  All  truth  was  sacred.  It  was  always 
and  everywhere  "  of  God  "  rather  than  "  of 
the  world."  The  man  who  sought  it  with  the 
purpose  of  honestly  applying  it  to  life  was 
of  the  class  who  bring  forth  fruits  meet  for 
repentance.  He  could  not  deliberately  face 
toward  the  truth  in  any  department  of  human 
experience  without  being  "  led  by  the  Spirit/' 
since  to  induce  men  to  take  that  attitude  is 
one  of  the  chief  offices  of  God  resident  in 
His  world ;  and  the  man  who  is  led  by  the 
Spirit  is  born  of  God  and  knoweth  God. 


XI 
THE  NEW   MEANING  OF  SOME  OLD  WORDS 

In  the  midst  of  the  Peelite  troubles  of  1852, 
when  a  change  of  party  names  was  gravely 
discussed  by  British  politicians  in  the  hope  of 
mollifying  opponents,  confirming  waverers, 
and  possibly  winning  recruits,  Sir  James 
Graham  reminded  his  colleagues  of  Paley's 
maxim,  "  that  men  often  change  their  creed, 
but  not  so  often  the  name  of  their  sect."  1  It 
is  natural  and  on  the  whole  commendable 
that  men  should  cling  to  significant  terms 
both  in  politics  and  in  religion.  There  is  lit- 
tle enough  that  is  sacred  in  a  word ;  but  as 
the  word  passes  into  history  it  begins  to  con- 
note experience — and  experience  is  always 
sacred.  Hence  it  comes  to  pass  that  language 
almost  insensibly  changes  its  significance  with 
the  march  of  human  progress.  A  word  may 
be  said  to  have  two  aspects.  It  appears  in  one 
light  to  the  man  who  sees  in  it  a  sign  of  his 

1  Morley,  Life  of  W.  E.  Gladstone,  i.  422. 


256        THE  DYNAMIC   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

experience ;  it  may  look  very  different  to  his 
fellow  who  regards  it  as  the  symbol  of  a  scien- 
tific idea.  Take  for  example  the  word  "  sun- 
rise." From  time  immemorial  men  have  known 
by  trial  what  "  sunrise  "  is.  They  have  looked 
with  longing  for  it  through  slow  night- 
watches  ;  they  have  built  their  plans  upon  the 
unfailing  certainty  of  its  appearance  ;  more  or 
less  dimly  they  have  felt  its  beauty  and  re- 
sponded to  its  exhilaration.  From  the  days 
when  the  Psalmist  thanked  God  for  the  joy- 
ous outgoings  of  morning  and  of  evening, 
they  have  paid  unconscious  tribute  to  the  prin- 
ciple of  the  Continuity  of  Nature  whenever 
they  have  used  the  phrase.  Measured  in  terms 
of  common  experience,  the  content  of  the  word 
has  been  practically  a  constant  quantity. 

On  the  other  hand,  when  wise  men  —  how- 
ever crude  their  wisdom  —  have  undertaken 
to  account  for  the  phenomenon  and  to  frame 
its  definition,  the  story  of  the  word  has  been 
one  of  perpetual  change.  In  the  light  of  mod- 
ern knowledge  ancient  theory  finds  no  stand- 
ing-ground. So  completely  does  the  planetary 
hypothesis  of  to-day  differ  from  the  Aurora 
myth,  that  the  two  may  be  said  to  have  no- 
thing in  common.    Yet  the  plain  man  feels 


NEW  MEANING  OF  SOME  OLD  WORDS    257 

no  embarrassment  in  using  his  ancestor's 
phrase.  So  much  of  the  word's  signification 
as  lies  in  the  plane  of  experience  defies  the 
tooth  of  time.  To  the  man  who  would  walk 
or  work  in  the  light,  "sunrise"  means  just 
what  it  meant  to  the  pilgrim  or  the  laborer 
of  a  thousand  years  ago. 

This  is  not  at  all  to  deny  the  practical  signi- 
ficance of  our  progress  in  ideas.  It  would  be 
easy  to  gather  a  group  of  men  with  cameras 
and  spectroscopes  and  sextants  who  should  be 
living  witnesses  to  the  fact  that  the  sun's  ap- 
pearance has  a  meaning  in  the  realm  of  prac- 
tical experience  to-day  which  is  vastly  wider 
than  of  old  time.  None  the  less,  "  sunrise  " 
remains  as  legitimate  a  term  as  ever.  Such 
change  as  has  passed  upon  it  has  simply  made 
it  richer  and  more  significant.  It  was  born  of 
a  mistaken  notion  that  the  sun  climbed  the 
arch  of  heaven  on  man's  behalf.  It  continues 
with  perfect  propriety  to  serve  the  need  of  a 
day  when  man  knows  that  the  revolution  of 
an  insignificant  planet  is  whirling  him  —  an 
insignificant  speck  upon  it  —  out  of  shadow 
into  light. 

As  was  intimated  in  the  last  chapter,  reli- 
gion must  take  ungrudging  account  of  this 


258        THE  DYNAMIC  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

fact.  Men  reproduce  experience  generation 
after  generation.  Though  the  reproduction 
be  not  exact,  it  is  still  real,  with  reference  to 
the  things  that  are  fundamental.  Each  gen- 
eration, however,  meets  life  upon  a  larger 
field  than  its  predecessors  knew,  and  therefore 
adds  something  of  its  own  to  the  heritage  be- 
queathed to  it.  It  is  further  true  that  vast 
changes  take  place  in  the  scientific  treatment 
of  experience.  As  men  ponder  upon  the  phe- 
nomena of  it  in  their  endeavor  to  discover 
its  causes  and  to  coordinate  its  results  into  sys- 
tems, the  hypotheses  advanced  to  account  for 
experience  must  differ,  and  differ  very  widely. 
Men  will  change  their  theories  more  readily 
than  their  terms.  They  cling  to  terms  be- 
cause these  represent  recurring  experiences ; 
they  change  their  theories  because  investiga- 
tion into  unexplored  quarters  of  their  widen- 
ing field  of  experience  presents  new  facts  and 
compels  scientific  rearrangement  of  old  ones. 
The  definition  of  religious  terms  may  be 
said  to  be  always  a  theological  exercise.  If  it 
is  to  be  undertaken  in  a  genuinely  scientific 
spirit,  the  facts  just  set  forth  must  never  be 
forgotten.  Terms  are  likely  to  persist  because 
they  are  the  symbols  of  persisting  experience. 


NEW  MEANING  OF  SOME   OLD   WORDS    259 

Definitions  are  bound  to  change  as  time  mul- 
tiplies and  tests  the  theories  advanced  to  ac- 
count for  experience.  Hence  it  follows  that 
definitions  have  permanent  value  for  what  they 
include  rather  than  for  what  they  exclude. 
They  must  be  framed  with  the  expectation  of 
an  increase  of  content.  They  must  be  regarded 
as  marking  stages  in  a  process  of  development. 
Every  definition  meant  to  represent  the  con- 
tent of  great  and  vital  realities  must  be 
provisional.  On  the  other  hand,  no  statement 
of  faith  which  has  moulded  and  formed  the 
thought  and  conduct  of  men  through  any 
considerable  period  is  to  be  treated  as  void 
of  truth.  It  will  almost  invariably  yield  sug- 
gestion to  the  reverent  student.  Reverence 
for  human  experience,  be  that  experience 
never  so  blind  and  partial,  is  a  prime  requi- 
site to  its  interpretation.  There  is  something 
in  it  which  will  always  escape  the  inquisition 
of  merely  indifferent  curiosity,  as  surely  as 
it  will  be  warped  and  refracted  by  passing 
through  the  medium  of  uncritical  and  unctu- 
ous sentiment.  The  verdict  upon  the  Unita- 
rians,1   that   they    have    often    succeeded   in 

1  The  reader  will  remember  that  the  word  used  by  Dr. 
Fairbairn  is  not  "  Unitarian  "  but  "  Socinian." 


260  THE  DYNAMIC   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

criticism  because  they  failed  in  insight,  has 
application  here.  There  is  need  of  that  fine 
combination  of  qualities  summed  up  in  the 
Scripture  phrase  "an  understanding  heart/' 
if  religious  experience  is  to  be  rightly  inter- 
preted or  religious  terms  intelligibly  defined. 
1.  There  was  a  time  when  men  seemed  satis- 
fied to  rest  in  a  definition  of  God  that  simply 
deified  some  process  in  nature  which  passed 
their  comprehension  and  of  which  they  found 
themselves  the  object.  They  were  involved  in 
the  process,  and  they  worshiped  the  chief 
apparent  factor  in  it.  The  recurrence  of  the 
day  and  the  march  of  the  seasons  represented 
such  a  process.  Men  naturally  worshiped  the 
sun,  therefore,  and  built  up  their  sun  myths 
about  it.  They  went  on  to  personify  their 
objects  of  worship,  because  of  an  ineradica- 
ble instinct  which  ascribes  all  processes  to 
an  ultimate  cause  possessing  the  characteris- 
tics of  mind  and  will.  Thus  the  worship  of  a 
multitude  of  demiurges  grew  up.  At  last  the 
notion  of  monolatry  or  henotheism,  the  wor- 
ship of  one  God,  to  whom  it  behooved  a  people 
to  be  true  through  good  report  and  ill,  was 
wrought  out  in  the  experience  of  the  Hebrews, 
and  was  developed  into  a  real  monotheism  by 


NEW   MEANING  OF  SOME  OLD   WORDS    261 

the  inspired  genius  of  the  prophets.  The  idea 
of  God  connoted  practically  illimitable  force. 
The  experience  of  men,  however,  demanded 
more  than  this  to  render  their  notion  of  the 
universe  rational.  So  the  idea  was  advanced 
to  include  the  attributes  of  reason  and  love. 
The  great  revelation  made  by  Jesus,  into  the 
depths  of  which  we  have  yet  made  but  partial 
way,  was  that  the  idea  of  God  can  be  properly 
expressed  in  terms  of  human  experience ;  but 
that  human  experience  can  never  compass  it 
in  such  a  degree  as  to  deny  it  further  growth 
and  development. 

In  the  light  of  Jesus'  teaching,  there  is 
no  need  to  shrink  from  the  use  of  anthropo- 
morphic terms  in  the  attempt  to  express  our 
idea  of  God.  The  true  definition  must  be 
big  enough  to  include  them,  since  intelligible 
terms  must  reflect  real  human  experience. 
The  trend  of  Christian  thought  has  naturally 
been  toward  a  notion  of  God  as  the  ground  of 
all  experience ;  the  source  of  all  thought,  will, 
and  feeling  ;  resident  in  His  universe,  and 
yet  transcending  it;  working  in  and  through 
man  as  the  most  highly  developed  agent 
that  life  has  revealed.  God  is  the  term  men 
use  for  the  Fountain  of  Creative  Force,  for 


262        THE  DYNAMIC   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

the  Source  of  Authority,  and  for  the  per- 
sonal object  of  supreme  affection.  It  will  be 
objected  that  such  an  attempt  at  definition 
lacks  the  fundamental  note  of  a  definition  in 
so  far  as  it  fails  to  delimit  the  idea,  and  to 
mark  bounds  beyond  which  its  content  may 
not  pass.  To  which  the  only  answer  to  be 
made  is  that  attempts  to  define  a  person  always 
have  to  reckon  with  the  fact  that  personality 
refuses  such  delimitation.  There  are  deeps  in 
it  which  pass  our  finding  out  unto  perfection. 
The  definition  which  deals  with  a  person  must 
always  have  room  in  it  for  growth.  God,  to 
the  Christian,  has  ceased  to  be  a  mere  object, 
and  become  an  experience.1 

It  will  be  further  objected  in  some  quar- 
ters that  such  an  approach  to  the  true  idea  of 
God  must  take  undue  account  of,  and  accord 
undue  importance  to,  the  ethnic  religions. 
But  it  is  well-nigh  impossible  to  take  undue 
account  of  the  ethnic  religions.  Enormous  im- 
portance attaches  to  them.  Not  one  among 
them  which  embodies  the  genuine  experience, 
or  has  called  forth  the  devoted  service  of  men, 
is  ever  to  be  contemned  or  treated  as  though 

1  Professor  Seth,  quoted    by  Inge,  Christian  Mysticism, 
p.  339. 


NEW  MEANING  OF  SOME  OLD   WORDS    263 

it  had  no  significance  to  the  Christian.  They 
all  testify  to  the  truth  that  we  are  "  incurably 
religious,"  and  they  challenge  the  Christian 
to  a  comparison  of  experience.  The  Chris- 
tian need  not  shrink  from  the  contest.  He  is 
doing  no  least  despite  to  the  claims  of  Christ 
in  frankly  admitting  that  the  faith  which  fits 
life  best,  by  meeting  its  daily  need  most  di- 
rectly, by  uttering  its  dicta  to  the  reason  and 
the  will  with  the  greatest  and  most  authorita- 
tive cogency,  by  offering  to  the  adventurous 
soul  of  man  the  largest  field  of  spiritual 
exercise,  is  the  faith  which  must  endure. 

2.  When  we  come  to  question  the  Christian 
as  to  the  experience  of  God  which  his  religion 
has  provided,  we  find  three  great  correspond- 
ences existing  between  his  faith  and  his  life. 
They  may  be  rudely  indicated  by  the  follow- 
ing formula  :  — 

Man  in  the  Making  connotes  the  Father. 
Man  in  the  Marring  connotes  Christ. 
Man  in  the  Remaking  connotes  the  Spirit. 

The  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  has  survived 
and  is  vital  to-day  because  it  expresses  expe- 
rience. Any  attempt  at  a  definition  of  it  must 
be  made  in  terms  of  life.  Man  as  a  rational 
being,  conscious  of  himself  as  the  subject  of 


264        THE  DYNAMIC  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

birth  and  growth,  and  observant  of  creation 
as  in  process  about  him,  is  driven  to  a  belief 
in  the  existence  of  a  Creative  Force.  The  more 
scientific  man  becomes,  in  his  observation  of 
the  facts  of  creation,  and  the  more  systematic 
his  arrangement  of  knowledge,  the  more  in- 
evitably is  he  driven  to  the  conclusion  that 
this  Creative  Force  is  rational  and  essentially 
personal,  in  our  ordinary  understanding  of 
that  word. 

Quite  as  fundamental  and  general  an  ex- 
perience as  that  of  the  awakening  of  man's 
scientific  curiosity  about  the  Whence  and  the 
How  of  the  world  in  which  he  finds  himself 
is  his  query  concerning  the  Why  and  the 
Whither  of  it,  and  himself  in  it.  Here  comes 
in  the  experience  of  the  marring  of  his  peace. 
He  becomes  conscious  of  himself  in  a  new 
sense.  He  knows  himself  now  to  be  a  person 
in  the  sense  in  which  Dorner  loved  to  define 
personality,  "the  ego  as  self-conscious  spirit 
moving  toward  the  fulfillment  of  its  existence." 
With  this  new  and  higher  realization  of  self, 
trouble  always  comes.  It  never  ministers  to 
peace  at  first.  That  question  of  fulfillment  of 
destiny  is  always  puzzling,  and  sometimes  sad- 
dening.    The  destiny  itself  is  a  mystery,  and 


NEW  MEANING  OF  SOME  OLD   WORDS    265 

the  way  toward  its  fulfillment  seems  strewn 
thick  with  obstacles.  The  man  no  sooner  be- 
comes conscious  of  himself  than  he  knows 
his  existence  by  himself  to  be  partial,  frag- 
mentary, difficult.  His  place  in  the  world  is 
not  commodious  enough  for  his  soul.  If  he 
fit  himself  to  it,  and  cut  all  his  thoughts  and 
deeds  by  the  measure  of  a  possible  threescore 
years  and  ten,  he  knows  he  is  dwarfing  self 
and  somehow  missing  his  chance.  To  use  once 
more  the  hard-worked  cant  phrase,  he  is  out 
of  harmony  with  his  environment.  In  theo- 
logical language,  he  is  under  conviction  of 
sin.  His  life  seems  marred,  and  nothing  can 
restore  its  peace  except  coordination  with  the 
general  scheme  of  things  which  he  knows  as 
the  universe,  and  with  the  Power  which  under- 
lies and  works  through  it. 

In  Christ,  this  Power  seems  to  make  a  new 
revelation  to  him.  In  Christ,  God  advances 
toward  him  with  overtures  of  peace  —  with 
promise  of  at-one-ment.  It  is  easy  to  state 
this  dogmatically;  but.  as  a  dogma  it  can 
exert  no  compulsion  on-  the  wills  and  lives  of 
men.  The  essence  of  the  revelation  appears 
in  the  light  of  Christian  experience.  With  a 
singular  unanimity  men  who  have  tried  Christ's 


266        THE  DYNAMIC   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

Way  of  faith,  hope,  and  love  have  found 
themselves  at  one  with  God  and  His  world. 
I  do  not  forget  that  they  have  often  felt  and 
taught  that  the  world  was  at  enmity  with  God. 
That,  however,  was  the  world  of  the  imper- 
fect, the  petty,  and  the  partial,  which  is  ever 
arrogating  to  itself  the  place  of  the  whole. 
In  the  larger  sense,  Christ  has  brought  them 
peace  and  power  as  citizens  of  the  Kingdom 
of  Heaven  —  that  is,  as  men  upon  whom  the 
freedom  of  the  universe  has  been  conferred. 

It  is  in  this  process  of  rebirth  into  the 
larger  world  —  of  endowment  with  a  genuine 
adequacy  to  circumstance,  that  man  comes  into 
immediate  consciousness  of  God  as  a  Spirit, 
pervading  the  universe,  immanent  in  the  world, 
and  speaking  immediately  to  the  soul  of  the 
man  himself.  Through  God,  thus  revealed 
as  Spirit,  revelation  becomes  an  immediate 
and  continuous  experience.  The  so-called  rev- 
elation of  the  past  —  the  word  of  the  Pro- 
phet, the  burden  of  the  Book,  the  dogma  of 
the  Church  —  all  has  significance.  Yet  this 
is  not  real,  ultimate,  essential  revelation.  It  is 
rather  the  vehicle  or  channel  of  it.  It  is  that 
through  which  the  real  revelation  flows,  or  if 
one  please  to  change  the  figure,  it  is  the  body 


NEW  MEANING  OF  SOME  OLD   WORDS    267 

of  which  the  real  revelation  is  born  when 
quickened  by  the  Spirit's  influence.  The  es- 
sence of  the  revelation  is  always  delivered  in 
the  divine  Spirit's  voice  to  the  human  spirit's 
ear.  The  two  are  of  one  nature,  and  each  can 
understand  the  other. 

3.  It  is  at  this  point  that  we  find  ourselves 
face  to  face  with  the  necessity  of  defining  sin. 
This  must  be  done  with  a  full  recognition  of 
the  fact  that  evil  is  a  mystery  not  yet  to  be 
compassed  and  made  plain  in  terms  of  human 
experience.  The  mystery  does  not,  however, 
put  us  to  any  permanent  confusion.  It  does 
not  compel  us  to  any  admission  of  dualism  in 
our  thought  of  God.  For  much  that  is  reck- 
oned to  be  evil  we  can  find  a  rational  place 
in  the  universe  upon  the  plane  of  our  present 
knowledge.  It  would  be  presumptuous  to 
say  that  we  can  find  room  and  place  for  all. 
The  problem  of  evil  challenges  us  to  further 
adventure  in  the  realm  of  thought.  Sin,  as 
it  appears  in  human  life,  is  specifically  and 
definitely  known.  Like  all  spiritual  experi- 
ences, it  transcends  the  limits  of  a  snug  and 
handy  definition ;  but  its  fundamental  charac- 
teristics may  be  pointed  out. 

Sin  is  the  permission  of  disorder  in  the  life 


268        THE  DYNAMIC   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

of  the  spiritual  man.  It  might  be  said  to  be 
the  state  or  condition  in  which  a  man  finds 
himself  when  the  dawn  of  self-consciousness 
opens  the  eyes  of  his  soul.  He  knows  himself 
to  be  an  individual,  and  therefore  partial  in 
himself.  His  powers  are  bound  to  prove  in- 
adequate to  circumstance  unless  he  find  place 
for  his  partial  life  in  the  system  of  the  whole. 
The  question  as  to  whether  he  will  do  this,  or 
choose  to  remain  in  his  anarchic  individual- 
ism, is  the  question  whether  he  will  live  in  sin 
or  turn  out  of  and  away  from  it.  To  become 
conscious  of  his  own  partial  and  insufficient 
life  is  to  be  convicted  of  sin.  The  old  phrase 
is  marvelously  expressive,  and  remains  apt  to 
our  modern  use  unless  we  insist  upon  making 
it  express  an  artificial  sense  of  guilt.  A  clear 
sense  of  guilt  may  or  may  not  appear  in  a 
man's  conviction  of  sin.  The  divine  Force 
resident  among  men  rarely  fails  to  bring  home 
to  the  individual  man  the  obligation  which 
rests  upon  him  to  coordinate  the  work  of 
his  reason,  his  will,  and  his  heart.  To  see  the 
thing  that  is  true  by  the  light  of  his  reason, 
to  choose  it  as  the  thing  to  be  done,  and  to 
love  it  as  a  thing  to  be  cherished,  is  to  yield 
life  to  the  Spirit's  guidance.    This  is  to  coor- 


NEW  MEANING  OF  SOME  OLD  WORDS    269 

dinate  the  different  activities  in  such  a  degree 

© 

as  will  permit  life's  orderly  development  under 
the  influence  of  its  divine  resident  forces.  It 
puts  a  man's  body  and  physical  powers  into 
right  relations  with  the  physical  frame  of  the 
universe,  and  his  soul  into  harmony  with  the 
creative  and  sustaining  Power  which  animates 
the  universe.  The  man  then  becomes  himself 
a  power  for  universal  order  and  efficiency. 

If,  on  the  other  hand,  he  willfully  or  care- 
lessly fail  in  this,  he  becomes  an  element  of 
disorder  looking  toward  anarchy.  In  so  far 
as  he  uses  his  will  to  choose  what  his  reason 
refuses,  or  uses  his  reason  narrowly  and  in 
such  domineering  fashion  as  to  rule  all  testi- 
mony of  his  heart  out  of  court  as  irrelevant, 
he  is  refusing  to  have  a  partial  life  made 
whole ;  he  is  choosing  a  life  of  sin,  and  com- 
mitting definite  acts  of  sin.  Sin  is  therefore 
fundamentally  a  failure  to  institute  and  main- 
tain a  correspondence  between  revelation  and 
life,  —  between  the  truth  that  is  known  and 

the  thing  that  is  done. 
© 

We  have  seen  that  to  become  convinced  of 
the  partial  and  unworthy  nature  of  the  life 
lived  as  though  its  individual  existence  for  a 
few  mortal  years  were  all,  is  to  be  convicted 


270        THE  DYNAMIC   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

of  sin.  If  this  realization  develop  after  years 
of  careless  or  willful  living,  in  which  oppor- 
tunities have  been  evidently  wasted,  the  sense 
of  guilt  often  accompanies  it,  sometimes 
appearing  in  almost  overwhelming  and  heart- 
breaking measure.  If,  however,  the  life  have 
been  upon  the  whole  well  trained  and  well 
ordered,  the  sense  of  guilt  is  scarcely  to  be 
expected.  But  whether  it  appear  or  not,  the 
conviction  of  sin  is  an  experience  which  in 
its  essence  must  have  been  known  to  all  gen- 
erations of  men  who  have  reached  the  stage 
of  a  well-developed  self-consciousness.  The 
vital  question  in  it  is,  whether  it  will  lead  a 
man  to  the  search  for,  and  the  acceptance  of, 
a  rational  religion.  Will  this  utterance  of  the 
Spirit's  voice,  telling  him  who  he  is  and  what 
he  needs,  be  met  by  a  resolve  on  his  part  to 
seek  for  peace  in  an  ampler  revelation  ? 

4.  The  etymology  of  the  word  "  religion  " 
has  been  in  doubt  from  the  days  of  Cicero. 
He  thought  of  it  as  possessing  fundamental 
relation  to  the  idea  of  conscientious  perform- 
ance. The  religious  man  was  the  man  who  gave 
attention  to  the  demands  of  the  gods,  going 
over  the  ground  of  his  duty  to  them  again 
and  again,  as  diligent  children  might  con  a 


NEW  MEANING  OF  SOME  OLD  WORDS    271 

lesson.  The  Fathers,  including  Augustine, 
derived  the  word  from  a  root  meaning  "to 
bind,"  and  emphasized  the  idea  of  obligation. 
Probably  they  were  right  so  far  as  the  literal 
sense  of  the  root-word  goes.  There  is  a  ques- 
tion whether  they  were  right  in  deriving  from 
it  the  obligation  idea  upon  which  they  put 
such  emphasis ;  but  whether  they  were  right 
or  not,  the  student  of  to-day,  in  view  of 
human  experience  in  the  light  of  Christian 
revelation,  would  make  a  different  applica- 
tion of  this  root  idea.  He  inclines  to  regard 
religion  as  the  principle  which  binds  the 
elements  of  life  together  in  such  a  way  as 
to  give  them  coherence  and  wholeness.  It 
is  the  bond  of  union  with  God.  It  is  no 
less  the  bond  of  life's  own  unity.  Under  the 
influence  of  religion  the  disjecta  membra  of 
experience  are  coordinated  and  made  efficient. 
Its  office  may  be  rudely  compared  to  that  of 
the  tire,  which  binds  the  helpless  conglom- 
erate of  hub,  spokes,  and  felloe  into  the  effi- 
cient entity  of  the  wheel;  or  of  the  hoops, 
which  hold  the  individual  staves  together 
that  the  pail  or  cask  may  have  content.  A  far 
more  significant  figure  is  to  be  derived,  how- 
ever, from  the  vision  of  Ezekiel,  where  the 


272        THE  DYNAMIC  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

word  or  breath  of  the  Spirit  comes  upon  the 
heaps  of  dry  and  separated  bones.  At  once 
they  are  articulated,  bone  to  his  bone ;  the 
skeletons  thus  bound  together  are  clothed 
upon  with  flesh ;  the  principle  of  self-direct- 
ing life  is  breathed  into  each  man's  frame ; 
and  the  men  themselves  under  its  influence 
stand  up,  no  mere  mass  of  unrelated  indi- 
viduals, but  an  exceeding  great  army.  Pure 
religion  and  undefiled  is,  therefore,  that  bond 
of  perfectness  and  peace  which  binds  a  man's 
life  into  coherence  and  efficiency  in  spite  of 
all  the  disintegrating  influences  of  selfishness. 
It  joins  men  together  in  well-ordered  soci- 
eties, and  binds  all  to  God  in  a  true  unity  of 
the  Spirit.1 

5.  It  is  in  the  light  of  such  a  definition 
of  religion  that  the  significance  of  salvation 
appears.  Men  have  questioned  sometimes 
whether  there  were  any  place  or  need  for  sal- 
vation in  a  system  of  thought  which  repre- 
sented God  as  immanent  in  the  world  and 
in  man,  and  which  identified  the  so-called 
"  forces  of  nature  "  with  His  immediate  resi- 
dent influences.  In  point  of  fact,  there  is  the 
largest  possible  place  and  need  for  salvation. 

1  Ephesians  iv.  3;  Colossians  iii.  14. 


NEW   MEANING  OF  SOME  OLD  WORDS    273 

It  is  not  so  much  a  salvation  from  a  future 
as  from  a  present  hell.    Indeed,  it  is  not  so 
much  a  salvation  from  a  fate,  as  to  an  op- 
portunity.    Yet   the   one   implies   the  other, 
and  the  old-time  preaching  of  hell  was  in  no 
sense  irrational  or  needless  ;   though  it  was 
too   often    ill-proportioned.     There  is   signi- 
ficance in  the  fact  that  when  Jesus  is  repre- 
sented in  the  Gospels  as  performing  miracles 
of  healing,  the  verb  crw^w  is  repeatedly  used. 
In  the  King  James  Version  it  is  sometimes 
translated   "  to   make  whole,"   as  when    the 
woman  in  the  crowd  says  to  herself,  "  If  I 
may  touch  but  his  clothes,  I  shall  be  whole  " 
(Mark  v.  28).    Again,  after  a  work  of  healing 
has  been  accomplished,  it  is  translated  "  to 
save ; "  "  Thy  faith  hath  saved  thee ;  go  in 
peace  "  (Luke  viii.  50).  "  To  save  "  is  of  course 
its  literal  translation,  but  the  salvation  which 
it  portrays  in  these  instances  is  the  making 
whole  of  an  incomplete  or  partially  disinte- 
grated body,  and  the   restoration  of  normal 
function.    Christian  salvation  is  strictly  anal- 
ogous.   It  is  the  restoration   of    the  maimed 
life,  and  the  completion  of  the  partial  life  in 
such  measure  that  the  functions  of  faith,  hope, 
and  love  shall  become  normal.    In  the  life  of 


274        THE  DYNAMIC   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

the  saved  man  the  obduracy  of  the  material 
with  which  the  resident  Spirit  must  needs 
work  out  His  plans  of  peace  and  unity  ceases. 
The  man  becomes  tractable  and  docile  to  the 
Spirit's  influence. 

6.  In  an  earlier  paragraph  the  statement 
was  made  that  no  article  of  a  creed  which  has 
seemed  so  great  and  vital  as  to  enter  deeply 
into  Christian  experience  would  ever  prove  to 
be  without  significance.  Emphasis  may  pass 
from  it ;  it  may  sink  into  relative  oblivion  ;  but 
it  is  not  likely  to  be  completely  superseded. 
The  question  may  properly  be  asked  whether 
this  contention  can  be  sustained  with  reference 
to  the  Atonement.  It  is  long  since  the  doc- 
trine of  vicarious  atonement  has  stood  in  the 
forefront  of  Christian  teaching.  Some  men 
deny  it.  Others  neglect  it  as  though  it  were 
half  obsolete.  Is  there  place  for  it  in  the 
thought  of  a  man  who  believes  the  Dynamic 
of  Christianity  to  be  God  as  a  resident  Force 
in  His  world  and  in  the  life  of  man  ?  I  should 
unhesitatingly  answer,  Yes.  Yet  here  again 
it  must  be  understood  that  atonement  is  to 
be  regarded  as  an  experience  and  not  as  a 
dogma.  It  is  not  a  single  act  of  Christ,  done 
once  and  forever  upon  the  Cross,  and  to  be 


NEW  MEANING  OF  SOME   OLD   WORDS    275 

exactly  defined  in  forensic  terms.  It  certainly 
cannot  be  represented  by  any  crass  notion  of 
so  much  suffering  credited  against  a  debt  of 
so  much  sin.  That  sort  of  commercialism  may 
well  be  as  abhorrent  to  the  Christian  as  ever 
the  money-changers'  tables  in  the  Temple  were 
to  his  Master. 

Still,  the  fact  remains  that  if  we  try  to  esti- 
mate our  immediate  knowledge  and  experience 
of  God  in  terms  of  the  divine  Spirit  resident 
in  man,  we  find  atonement  to  be  His  most  ap- 
parent aim  and  purpose.  In  the  definition  of 
religion,  the  fact  was  just  emphasized  that 
if  it  meant  anything,  it  meant  a  principle  of 
integration  and  harmony,  —  of  vital  and  natu- 
ral union  between  the  various  activities  and 
powers  of  a  man,  between  each  individual  man 
and  his  neighbor,  and  between  all  men  and 
God.  This  is  practical  and  real  atonement  in 
its  most  literal  sense.  Christ's  mission  was  to 
accomplish  this.  The  method  was,  in  the  most 
literal  and  natural  sense,  vicarious.  He  lived 
and  died  for  men.  He  spent  Himself  in  their 
behalf.  He  shed  His  blood  in  sacrifice,  but 
this  was  simply  a  rational  consummation  of 
the  course  of  life-giving  which  had  marked 
the  whole  ministry.    It  was  not  an  act  essen- 


276        THE  DYNAMIC  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

tially  different  from  a  hundred  other  acts  of 
sacrifice  and  love.   When  He  felt  that  virtue 
had  gone  out  of  Him  to  the  shrinking  and 
fearful  woman  in  the  crowd,  the  experience 
was    essentially  one  with  the  experience  on 
Calvary.    The  latter  was  a  supreme  manifes- 
tation of  the  same  sacrificial  love  which  the 
former  evidenced  in    its  proper   degree.    It 
gave  to  the  declaration  of  divine    love   the 
greatest  emphasis  of  which  human  terms  are 
capable.    It  is  a  belittling   of  Christ's  sacri- 
fice to  say  that  this  atoning  work  was  com- 
prised in  a  single  act  or  experience  of  the  Son 
of  Mary  upon  Calvary.   The  Sacrifice  and  the 
Atonement  must  be  coeval  with  man's  partial 
and  separate  existence  upon  the  earth.    None 
can  say  when  it  began  or  when  it  shall  end. 
The  experience  of  the  man,  Christ  Jesus,  was 
the  great  pivotal    chapter  in  it.    His    assur- 
ance that  the   work    of  the  ages  was  to  be 
His  own  work  carried  on  by  the  Spirit  was  a 
prophecy  that  atonement  was  to  be  continu- 
ous.   Experience  has  shown  that  atonement  is 
most  efficacious  when  it  is  vicarious.   It  is  not 
irreverent  to  claim  that  wherever  a  man  bears 
hardness  for  the  sake  of  his  fellow,  the  work 
of  vicarious  atonement  appears  in  process.    It 


NEW  MEANING  OF  SOME   OLD   WORDS    277 

is  not  enough  to  say  that  this  is  simply  a  gra- 
cious echo  or  reflection  of  Christ's  work.  It 
is  His  work  in  esse,  as  carried  on  by  the 
resident  Spirit  in  the  world.  When  Mazzini 
said  that  there  was  one  appeal  to  men  which 
he  found  never  failed  to  win  a  response,  — 
the  appeal  "  Come  and  suffer,"  —  he  bore 
testimony  to  the  fact  that  this  Spirit  does  not 
disdain  residence  in  some  men  who  are  far 
from  thinking  of  themselves  as  Christians. 
Wherever  He  abides  as  a  ruling  principle  of 
life,  something  of  the  work  of  atonement  goes 
forward,  and  usually  by  vicarious  method. 

7.  It  is  this  fact  that  gives  us  a  basis  for 
a  definition  of  the  Church.  Ubi  Spiritus,  ibi 
ecclesia.  The  question  might  fairly  be  asked 
whether,  since  this  little  book  is  based  upon 
a  belief  in  the  presence  of  the  Spirit  in  all 
nature,  and  in  all  men,  the  Church  were  not 
already  universal.  To  which  it  must  be  an- 
swered, —  Yes,  the  Church  is  thus  universal 
in  jiosse ;  but  the  Church  appears  in  esse 
wherever  the  Spirit's  presence  is  owned  and 
admitted  to  be  regnant  in  the  thought  and 
conduct  of  men  in  such  degree  that  the  nat- 
ural fruits  of  the  Spirit  appear.  Wherever  in 
any  man's  life  "  love,  joy,  peace,  long-suffer- 


278        THE  DYNAMIC   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

ing,  kindness,  goodness,  faithfulness,  meek- 
ness, self-control "  appear,  these  fruits  of  the 
Spirit  afford  unanswerable  proof  of  His  reg- 
nant presence.  These  are  the  true  insignia  of 
church-membership. 

It  is  so  evident  as  scarcely  to  need  formal 
statement,  that  where  men  are  so  effectually 
under  the  Spirit's  guidance  as  to  give  this 
evidence  of  His  possession  of  their  lives,  they 
will  naturally  associate  themselves  in  local 
bodies  for  work  and  worship.  Their  individ- 
ual preferences  with  respect  to  forms  of  wor- 
ship, modes  of  church-government,  or  the  rel- 
ative emphasis  to  be  placed  upon  minor  points 
of  doctrine,  will  necessitate  greater  or  less 
variety  in  the  constitution  and  management 
of  these  local  bodies.  This  variety  may  some- 
times become  bewildering ;  it  may  often  ap- 
pear, and  sometimes  prove  to  be,  selfish,  and 
therefore  disorganizing.  Yet  so  long  as  it  be 
held  subject  to  the  cultivation  of  the  fruits  of 
the  Spirit,  there  is  no  real  schism.  "  To  bite 
and  devour  one  another  "is  to  render  the 
structure  of  the  local  church  obdurate  to  the 
Spirit's  influence,  and  to  invite  schism ;  but 
the  presence  of  Presbyterian,  Episcopalian, 
and  Quaker  organizations  in  the  same  com- 


NEW  MEANING  OF  SOME   OLD  WORDS    279 

munity  is  in  itself  no  more  proof  of  schism 
in  the  body  spiritual,  than  the  presence  of 
clergymen,  physicians,  and  merchants  living 
side  by  side  is  of  schism  in  the  body  politic. 

It  would  be  possible  thus  to  proceed  through 
the  whole  lexicon  of  theological  and  religious 
terms,  testing  their  received  content  by  the 
touch  of  human  experience  as  guided  by  the 
resident  Spirit.  We  may  be  sure  that  all  which 
have  ever  appealed  to  men's  hearts,  and  exerted, 
a  controlling  influence  upon  their  lives,  would 
prove  to  have  significance,  however  obsolete 
they  may  seem  to  be.  Snch  a  task  is  beyond 
the  scope  of  our  present  adventure;  and  this 
chapter  must  close  with  a  brief  reference  to 
the  new  position  of  the  Bible  and  the  doc- 
trine of  its  inspiration. 

8.  Here,  as  so  often  elsewhere,  we  need  to 
remind  ourselves  again  that  the  new  view  is 
likely  to  prove  but  an  old  doctrine  awakened 
out  of  sleep.  The  notion  of  the  literal  infal- 
libility of  Scripture  is  no  true  Reformation 
teaching.  It  represents  rather  the  crust  which 
formed  upon  the  Reformation  experience  when 
men  undertook  to  crowd  that  experience  into 
a  snug  and  well-defined  system. 

In  their  protest  against  the  authority  of  the 


280        THE  DYNAMIC  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

Church,  the  later  Reformers  found  it  con- 
venient to  set  up  the  ipse  dixit  of  the  Bible. 
Luther,  Calvin,  and  Zwingli  had  gone  too 
deep  into  the  real  Reformation  experience 
ever  to  give  consistent  assent  to  this  new  doc- 
trine ;  but  to  their  successors  it  seemed  to  be 
the  easiest  and  most  direct  way  of  thoroughly 
systematizing  the  new  thought.  They  forgot, 
if  they  ever  knew,  that  as  soon  as  thought  be- 
comes thoroughly,  that  is  to  say,  completely 
systematized,  it  falls  into  a  dogmatic  slumber 
in  which  men  count  it  dead.  In  propound- 
ing the  doctrine  of  Biblical  infallibility,  its 
sponsors  did  the  immediately  easy  thing,  for- 
getting that  the  truth,  while  it  always  proves 
ultimately  practicable,  is  by  no  means  always 
immediately  easy.  It  loves  to  laugh  at  our 
confident  attempts  to  cram  experience  into  a 
little  system,  and  it  is  sometimes  shockingly 
contemptuous  of  our  small  consistencies.  For 
instance,  the  average  man  upon  the  street 
will  say  that  the  shortest  distance  between 
two  points  upon  the  earth  which  lie  exactly 
east  and  west  from  each  other  is  to  be  mea- 
sured upon  the  "  straight "  east-and-west  line. 
He  treats  it  as  a  self-evident  proposition,  and 
inclines    to   laugh   at  any  other    claim ;   but 


NEW   MEANING  OF  SOME  OLD  WORDS    281 

the  navigator,  knowing  that  this  is  never  the 
shortest  distance  except  upon  the  equator, 
sails  forth  upon  his  great  circle  arc  with  a 
confidence  which  puts  his  uninstructed  friend 
to  shame.  The  bane  of  science  has  always 
been  the  number  of  thinkers  who  have  in- 
sisted upon  sailing  on  small  circles  because 
small  circles  can  be  completed,  while  the 
great  circles  of  experience,  the  arcs  of  which 
represent  our  most  direct  paths  to  ultimate 
realities,  are  never  quite  closed. 

The  Bible  is  not  so  much  a  supernatural 
and  infallible  code  of  Christian  verities,1  as 
a  witness  to  man's  experience  of  God.  We 
need  have  no  hesitation  in  claiming  for  it  the 
place  of  a  unique  witness,  because  historically 
it  has  held  a  singular  and  unique  place  in 
human  life.  By  the  same  token  we  are  as- 
sured of  its  "  inspiration,' '  and  that  in  unique 
degree. 

The  religious  experience  which  the  Bible 
sets  forth  is  of  the  highest  order.  The  story 
of  it  is  of  the  highest  significance,  and  there- 
fore of  the  highest  authority.  But  the  author- 
ity consists  in  the  aptness  of  this  experience 
to  every  man's   need.    The   inspiration  con- 

1  Sabatier's  Religions  of  Authority,  p.  165. 


282        THE  DYNAMIC  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

sists  in  the  voice  which  speaks  through  the 
Bible  story  to  our  hearts.  When  those  hearts 
are  not  too  heavy  with  failure  over  fruitless 
attempts  to  reconcile  impossible  theories  of 
Scripture,  they  own  the  Spirit's  voice  in  it 
as  sheep  own  the  voice  of  the  shepherd.  In 
the  utterance  of  this  intimate  and  appeal- 
ing message,  the  divine  Force  resident  in 
human  life  uses  imperfect  means  as  readily 
and  generously  as  He  uses  imperfect  men  in 
advancing  the  cause  of  truth  and  of  right  to- 
day. He  speaks  through  Bible  history,  but 
nowhere  vouches  for  its  infallibility.  He  uses 
the  voice  of  Hebrew  poetry,  and  the  man  who 
cannot  discern  the  note  of  inspiration  in  the 
Psalms  may  well  conclude  that  there  are  no 
chords  in  his  soul  upon  which  any  breath  of 
the  Spirit  can  ever  take  effect.  Just  as  im- 
partially, and  with  the  same  divine  humility, 
the  Spirit  avails  Himself  of  the  traditions, 
legends,  and  perhaps  the  myths 1  of  a  highly 
endowed  people  to  interpret  His  message  to 
their  hearts. 

There  need  be  no  hesitation  in  admitting 

1  I  confess  to  a  great  skepticism  about  the  presence  of  the 
mythical.  Tradition  and  legend  abound  ;  but  the  mythical 
seems  antipathetic  to  the  Hebrew  genius. 


NEW  MEANING  OF  SOME  OLD   WORDS    283 

this  to  be  quite  as  true  of  the  New  Testament 
as  of  the  Old.  The  resident  Force  working 
out  His  plan  of  religious  development  in  the 
life  of  the  race  disdains  no  ordinary  human 
methods  of  accomplishment.  He  loves  the 
normal  as  Jesus  Himself,  with  His  refusal 
to  grant  signs  and  wonders  to  a  sensation- 
seeking  crowd,  always  seemed  to  do.  The 
supra-normal  appears  from  time  to  time,  as 
it  always  appears  in  every  epoch-making 
life.  A  great  life  is  always  a  channel  for  the 
introduction  of  strange  experience,  which  the 
majority  of  the  men  of  the  time  treat  with 
skepticism.  It  was  to  be  expected  that  the 
greatest  life  would  prove  to  be  the  channel 
for  the  most  striking  and  startling  revelation. 
The  whole  question  of  Miracle  must  be  rele- 
gated to  the  concluding  chapter.  Yet  it  is, 
however,  too  late  in  the  day  to  deny  miracles  ; 
just  as  it  is  quite  too  late  to  think  of  them 
as  contraventions  of  the  order  of  the  uni- 
verse. The  greatest  miracle  is  Christ's  life 
and  death,  and  the  outflowing  of  influence 
into  our  experience  from  them.  Let  us  admit, 
and  gladly,  that  the  history  of  the  first  cen- 
tury has  come  down  to  us  as  other  histories 
have   come ;    that   tradition    has    played   its 


284        THE  DYNAMIC   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

part,  and  that  legend  has  here  and  there 
brought  its  accretion.  Criticism  of  the  sane 
and  generous  sort  ought  to  be  invited,  rather 
than  shunned.  It  is  hard  to  see  what  de- 
structive work  it  can  do,  except  to  the  struc- 
ture of  those  who  build  their  faith  upon  a 
foundation  of  mechanical  inspiration,  instead 
of  upon  the  presence  of  God  which,  in  greater 
or  less  degree,  every  age  has  experienced. 
The  first  century  felt  it  in  a  unique  measure, 
as  it  seemed  to  be  interpreted  into  its  life  in 
the  Person  of  Christ.  The  New  Testament  is 
the  attempt,  and  a  most  highly  authoritative 
attempt,  to  preserve  that  experience  in  a  form 
which  shall  make  it  applicable  to  the  life  of 
every  generation.  Yet  every  century  inter- 
prets and  applies  the  meaning  of  the  New 
Testament  story  in  the  light  of  an  experi- 
ence longer  and  richer  by  one  hundred  years 
than  that  of  its  predecessor ;  but  no  century 
has  succeeded  in  reading  any  vital  factor  out 
of  the  Gospels  and  Epistles. 

9.  Just  now  the  Gospels  of  the  Infancy  with 
the  story  of  the  Virgin  Birth  are  bearing  the 
brunt  of  a  new  inquiry  among  so-called  ortho- 
dox Christians.  Let  us  admit  for  the  moment, 
and  solely  for  the  sake  of  argument,  that  the 


NEW  MEANING  OF  SOME  OLD   WORDS    285 

tradition  incorporated  in  the  early  chapters 
of  Matthew  and  Luke  proves  to  be  legendary 
in  its  character.  Is  it,  therefore,  to  be  re- 
garded as  outside  the  pale  of  significant 
Scripture,  and  preserved  to  the  canon  only 
upon  sufferance  as  a  sort  of  historical  curi- 
osity ?  And  shall  we,  to  be  consistent,  cut  out 
the  words  "  conceived  by  the  Holy  Ghost " 
from  the  Apostles'  Creed  ?  I  cannot  think 
so ;  because  centuries  of  experience  have 
proven  practically  beyond  cavil  the  truth  of 
the  Creed's  declaration.  The  real  central  as- 
severation of  the  Creed  is  that  Jesus  Christ 
was  in  the  article  of  birth  as  truly  as  in  the 
article  of  death  an  incarnation  of  divine  life 
and  love.  He  came  upon  a  unique  errand. 
He  was  to  fulfill  a  unique  destiny.  The  real 
significance  of  the  doctrine  to  the  Church 
and  the  world,  and  the  ultimate  meaning  of 
the  words  of  the  Creed,  is  simply  an  echo  of 
the  angel's  word  to  Mary,  —  "  The  Power 
of  the  Most  Hi^h  shall  overshadow  thee." 
The  mere  physical  circumstances  of  incarna- 
tion are  so  absolutely  irrelevant  as  to  make 
inquiry  into  them  as  unseemly  in  this  case  as 
in  the  case  of  any  other  great  life.  If  the 
phrase  in  the  Creed  were  to  go,  the  experi- 


286        THE  DYNAMIC  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

ence  of  the  Christian  world  would  demand 
the  substitution  of  another.  Even  admit- 
ting the  Gospel  of  the  Infancy  to  be  mere 
legend,  it  is  hard  to  see  what  phrase  could 
be  substituted  for  "conceived  by  the  Holy 
Ghost,"  which  would  so  exactly  express  the 
conclusion  thrust  upon  a  man  who  believes 
in  an  orderly  universe,  the  life  of  which 
develops,  and  the  history  of  which  unfolds, 
under  the  impulse  of  a  resident  personal 
Force. 

Although  extended  reference  to  the  greatly 
vexed  question  of  the  Ultimate  Source  of 
Authority  must  be  left  to  the  next  chapter, 
the  trend  of  this  will  indicate  the  direction 
in  which  the  writer  looks  for  its  practical 
answer.  It  is  not  to  a  book,  or  to  a  church, 
or  to  a  creed.  It  is  not  even  to  history  in 
the  common  acceptance  of  that  word ;  that 
is,  it  is  not  to  a  mere  precis  or  brief  of 
human  experience.  It  is  rather  to  the  voice 
of  the  creative  Power,  immanent  in  the  world, 
speaking  the  language  of  the  soul  in  terms  of 
conscience  and  reason.  Since,  however,  the 
language  of  the  soul  is  an  imperfect  tongue, 
and  the  individual  soul's  life  is  sure  to  be 
inadequate  for  the  utterance  of   the  whole 


NEW  MEANING  OF   SOME  OLD   WORDS    287 

truth,  and  too  often  obdurate  to  its  transla- 
tion into  goodness,  other  authorities  have 
their  place  and  weight.  Chief  among  these 
stand  the  common  conscience  of  believing- 
people,  the  consensus  of  opinion  among  right- 
minded  men,  the  history  of  human  experi- 
ence, and  in  particular  the  unique  expression 
of  it  found  in  Sacred  Scripture,  culminating 
as  it  does  in  the  life  of  Jesus  Christ.  He  ex- 
pressed this  truth  of  God's  residence  in  the 
world  as  it  had  never  been  expressed  before. 
He  told  His  disciples  that  it  was  the  Gospel 
for  the  future.  There  are  signs  that  the  world 
is  at  last  opening  its  eyes  to  the  significance 
of  His  word. 


XII 

THE  NEW  HARMONIES   OF  REVELATION 

It  seems  a  far  cry  now  to  the  day  when  so 
mild  a  heresy  as  that  of  "Essays  and  Ke- 
views  "  could  shatter  the  peace  of  ecclesias- 
tical dovecots.  In  point  of  fact,  however,  but 
two-score  years  have  passed  since  the  Judicial 
Committee  of  the  Privy  Council  reversed  the 
judgment  against  Rowland  Williams  and  H. 
B.  Wilson  for  their  part  in  that  rash  enter- 
prise. This  was  on  February  8,  1864.  On 
February  14,  John  Eichard  Green,  the  his- 
torian, wrote  to  his  friend  Boyd  Dawkins  that 
there  seemed  now  nothing  remaining  in  the 
formularies  of  the  Church  of  England  to  re- 
strain freedom  of  thought.  He  fancied  that 
there  would  be  an  almost  universal  feeling  of 
dismay  at  the  notion  of  a  church  attempting 
to  teach  without  authoritative  and  definite 
standards  of  doctrine,  and  then  adds,  "  If  I 
do  not  share  these  fears,  if  I  exult  at  the 
destiny  which  God  has  given  to  the  Church 
which  I  love,  it  is  because  I  believe  in  the 


NEW   HARMONIES  OF  REVELATION      289 

Inspiration  of  the  Church,  in  its  guidance  by 
the  Spirit  of  God."  He  goes  on  to  note  the 
formal  belief  in  such  guidance  which  Christian 
people  generally  admit  in  word  ;  maintains 
that  the  voice  of  this  Spirit  must  be  sought 
in  the  final  utterances  of  the  conscience  of 
Christendom  ;  and  concludes  :  "  That  these 
6  voices  of  the  Church '  do  not  point  in  a  doc- 
trinal direction,  but  in  directions  moral,  so- 
cial, political,  intellectual,  is  a  fact  well  worth 
noting.  Another  notable  fact  is  the  extreme 
slowness  with  which  '  Christian  opinion  '  forms 
itself,  —  how  many  ages  it  required  ere  serf- 
dom became  an  acknowledged  wrong,  for 
instance.  The  history  of  the  Church  is  the 
record  of  its  education  by  the  Spirit  of  God. 
No  wonder,  then,  that  we  are  in  some  re- 
spects in  a  period  of  suspense  now  that  we 
see  in  part  and  prophesy  in  part !  "  * 

It  was  the  utterance  of  a  true  seer.  That 
phrase  "  period  of  suspense  "  admirably  char- 
acterizes the  forty  years  which  have  inter- 
vened. Those  four  decades  have  seen  the  rise 
and  the  decline  of  an  agnosticism  the  prin- 
cipal practical  tendency  in  which  was,  in 
homely  phrase,  "  to  let  what  we  don't  know 

1  Letters  of  J.  R.  Green,  ed.  by  Leslie  Stephen,  p.  140. 


290        THE  DYNAMIC   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

rule  what  we  do  know."  This  agnostic  style 
of  thought  held  the  germs  of  dissolution  in 
itself,  and  it  had  only  to  state  its  contention 
fairly  and  squarely  in  order  to  supply  its  own 
antidote.  In  its  extreme  and  most  consistent 
form  this  was  little  less  than  an  invitation  to 
men  to  permit  the  paralysis  of  what  they 
instinctively  feel  to  be  their  highest  facul- 
ties. James  Russell  Lowell  was  no  partisan 
of  orthodoxy.  He  could  be  depended  upon 
to  speak  out  frankly  in  behalf  of  the  inde- 
pendent and  natural  man,  in  the  best  sense 
of  those  two  hard-used  adjectives.  It  will  be 
remembered,  however,  that  after  reading  the 
late  Sir  Leslie  Stephen's  "  English  Thought 
in  the  Eighteenth  Century  "  he  wrote :  "  I  am 
very  much  in  the  state  of  mind  of  the  Bre- 
tons who  revolted  against  the  revolutionary 
government,  and  wrote  upon  their  banners, 
'  Give  us  back  our  God.'  I  suppose  I  am  an 
intuitionalist,  and  there  I  mean  to  stick.  I 
accept  the  challenge  of  common  sense  and 
claim  to  have  another  faculty,  as  I  should 
insist  that  a  peony  was  red  though  twenty 
color-blind  men  denied  it."  1 

1  Cf.  editorial  on  "The  Outgrown  Agnosticism"  in  the 
Boston  Transcript  of  February  26,  1904. 


NEW  HARMONIES  OF  REVELATION      291 

The  vogue  of  agnosticism  was  due  largely 
to  the  fact  that  it  seemed  to  recognize  the 
suspense  of  the  period  to  which  Green  re- 
ferred.   Its  inadequacy  to  meet  the  need  of 
the  thinking  world  for  more  than  one  or  two 
hazy  days  lay  in  its  failure  to  trace  this  sus- 
pense to  its  true  source.  The  world  had  grown. 
It  was  becoming  too  big  to  be  the  creation  of 
some  men's  God.    Hence   the  temptation  to 
fancy  that  unless  this  world  of  experience  could 
be  kept  within    traditional    limits,    all    faith 
in  God  must  go.    The  true  antidote  for  the 
fear  lay    in    a    perception  of  the  truth  that 
every  increase  of  knowledge  in  any  depart- 
ment of  human  life,  when  rightly  interpreted, 
is  really  a  revelation  of  God.    It  is  significant 
that  Green  implied  this  in  saying  that  the 
voice  of  the  Spirit  in  the  Church  had  uttered 
His  dictum  in  terms  "  moral,  social,  political, 
intellectual,"   quite   as  often   as  in  terms  of 
abstract   doctrine.    The   fundamental  fact  is 
that  the  source  and  ground  of  revelation  are 
one,   although   the   channels  through   which 
the  revelation   flows  into  the   experience  of 
men  may  be  so  many  and  so  diverse  as  to 
seem  contradictory. 

The    fear   that    has   sometimes   oppressed 


292        THE   DYNAMIC   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

good  men  until  it  tempted  them  into  courses 
of  reaction  and  obscurantism  has  been  an 
unworthy  dread  lest  a  discovery  in  the  realm 
of  the  "  natural "  might  somehow  contradict  a 
revelation  in  the  realm  of  the  "  supernatural." 
The  mocking  skepticism  of  a  certain  school  of 
naturalists,  on  the  other  hand,  has  had  its 
source  in  the  claim  that  research  into  the 
realm  of  the  "  natural  "  would  eventually  do 
away  entirely  with  experience  in  the  realm  of 
the  "  supernatural/'  Great  store  of  breath 
and  ink  has  been  expended  in  attempts  to 
reconcile  these  two  camps.  The  hostility  has 
persisted  despite  all  temporary  truces ;  and 
rightly  enough,  because  of  the  narrow  and 
partial  outlook  of  both  groups  of  combatants. 
The  research  of  neither  has  often  gone  deep 
enough  to  discover  the  common  truth  which 
supplies  them  both  with  all  the  really  effec- 
tive weapons  in  their  arsenals.  The  expected 
reconciliation  at  which  so  many  fatuous  at- 
tempts have  been  made  will  never  come  as 
the  result  of  a  compromise.  It  is  to  be  no 
armed  peace.  Its  good  fruits  will  not  grow 
in  a  field  which  Religion  grudgingly  makes 
over  to  Science,  and  on  which  Science  in 
return    pays  contemptuous  respect   to    Reli- 


NEW   HARMONIES  OF  REVELATION      293 

gion.  All  jealous  comparison  of  the  relative 
worth  of  the  experience  with  which  each  deals 
is  beside  the  mark.  The  principle  which  gov- 
erns the  value  of  both  to  human  life  lies  too 
deep  for  discovery  by  such  methods  as  that. 

This  principle  appears  only  with  the  recog- 
nition of  the  fact  that  there  is  no  room  in  the 
universe  for  a  fundamental  contradiction  of 
experience ;  that  all  experience  makes  for  the 
discovery  of  truth  ;  and  that  all  truth  is  sacred 
in  proportion  to  its  applicability  to  conduct. 
These  things  seem  so  much  like  platitudes 
that  the  pen  almost  balks  at  them.  Yet  in  a 
sense  all  life  consists  in  bringing  thought  and 
conduct  into  vital  relation  to  axioms,  which 
in  the  process  must  needs  be  stated  and  re- 
stated, line  upon  line,  precept  upon  precept. 
The  thing  that  gave  a  real  significance  to 
the  late  Professor  Drummond's  popular  books 
was  his  recognition  of  this  fact  of  the  con- 
tinuity  of  experience,  and  the  fundamental 
identity  of  the  ground  of  experience.  The 
natural  and  the  spiritual  were  not  two  distinct 
spheres  animated  by  two  distinct  principles 
of  life.  One  resident  Force  wrought  in  both 
in  accordance  with  one  self-consistent  purpose. 
Nor  was  there  one  principle  of  revelation  in 


294        THE  DYNAMIC  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

the  sphere  of  the  spiritual  and  another  in  the 
sphere  of  the  natural.  The  source  of  life 
and  knowledge  in  both  realms  is  identical. 

It  remains  to  inquire  a  little  more  inti- 
mately into  some  of  these  new  harmonies  of 
revelation  which  should  appear  as  the  old 
dualism  or  pluralism  gives  place  to  faith  in  a 
Spirit  of  all  truth,  resident  in  the  world  and 
in  men.  In  the  first  place,  what  will  be  the 
fate  of  "  revelation  "  ?  Timid  souls  have  all 
too  often  given  themselves  up  to  the  fear  that 
"revelation"  would  be  despoiled  of  religious 
authority  unless  its  method  were  more  or  less 
involved  in  mystery.  The  mass  of  Christian 
believers  in  the  nineteenth  century  has  been 
almost  as  clamant  for  a  sign  as  was  the  Gali- 
lean multitude  in  the  first.  Jesus  was  slow  to 
gratify  curiosity  then  ;  the  Spirit  as  really  dis- 
trusts it  now.  The  signs  of  the  times  and  the 
living  parables  of  nature  were  the  avenues 
through  which  Christ  loved  to  guide  the  truth 
into  the  experience  of  those  about  Him.  The 
whole  system  of  genuinely  Christian  thought 
is  built  upon  the  principle  that  everything 
known  is  revealed,  whether  it  come  by  way  of 
a  sudden  voice  from  heaven  or  through  toil- 
some human  research.    To  the  Christian  who 


NEW   HARMONIES   OF  REVELATION      295 

believes  in  God  resident  and  executive  in 
His  world,  every  revelation  is  a  discovery  and 
every  discovery  is  a  revelation.  The  Ten 
Commandments,  even  upon  the  most  literal 
interpretation  of  the  splendid  Exodus  tradi- 
tion, were  a  discovery  of  Moses ;  and  the 
formula  of  the  attraction  of  gravitation,  with 
its  far-reaching  influence  upon  our  knowledge 
of  the  material  universe,  was  no  less  a  revela- 
tion to  Newton.  The  anthropomorphic  finger 
of  God  upon  the  tables  of  stone  has  obscured 
the  natural  means  of  Moses'  revelation  as 
effectually  as  the  traditional  apple  upon  the 
mathematician's  head  has  hidden  the  spiritual 
significance  of  Newton's  discovery. 

It  may  well  be  true  that  some  revelations 
are  more  immediate  than  others  in  this  sense, 
that  they  involve  a  far  less  obvious  display  of 
ordinary  means,  precisely  as  some  discoveries 
seem  more  intuitive  than  others  because  the 
chain  of  revealing  events  is  hidden.  In  the 
intercourse  of  person  with  person,  heart  some- 
times speaks  to  heart  with  such  directness 
that  the  idea  of  discovery  is  obscured  in  the 
evident  fact  of  revelation,  while  in  the  patient 
investigation  of  what  we  so  blindly  call  ma- 
terial phenomena,  the  reverse  is  as  often  true. 


296        THE   DYNAMIC   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

But  fundamentally  there  is  an  identity  of 
experience  here,  and  to  permit  revelation  to 
rule  discovery  off  its  premises,  or  vice  versa,  is 
to  deny  the  presence  of  the  Spirit  in  the  world. 

It  follows  that  any  real  antinomy  between 
natural  and  revealed  religion  is  false,  and  that 
even  a  sharply  defined  distinction  must  prove 
unworthy  and  misleading.  Its  only  justifi- 
cation lies  in  the  fact  that  there  is  a  shade 
of  difference  between  the  revelation  which 
smites  the  human  heart  with  the  compelling 
impact  of  a  "  thus  saith  the  Lord,"  and  the 
revelation  which  is  seen  to  be  implicit  in  the 
structure  of  the  universe.  The  former  is  often 
sudden,  and  the  latter  gradual,  in  asserting 
itself.  The  former  may  also  relate  itself  more 
immediately  and  explicitly  to  conduct  than 
the  latter;  it  requires  less  translation  in  order 
that  its  message  may  be  expressed  in  terms  of 
goodness.  Yet  even  here  the  distinction  is 
temporary  and  incidental  rather  than  perma- 
nent and  essential.  Fundamentally,  natural 
and  revealed  religion  are  but  different  names 
for  the  same  appeal,  directed  in  the  former 
case,  it  may  be,  a  little  more  directly  to  the 
intellect,  and  in  the  latter  to  the  heart. 

So  by  degrees,  as  Christianity  matures  and 


NEW   HARMONIES   OF  REVELATION      297 

bears  fruit  in  a  genuine  faith  in  God  as  a  Spirit, 
we  shall  see  the  old  and  long  emphasized  dis- 
tinction between  natural  and  supernatural 
fade  away.  It  can  be  maintained  only  upon 
the  hypothesis  that  God  is  not  really  at  home 
in  His  world,  and  that  He  becomes  execu- 
tive in  it  merely  by  fits  and  starts.  The  sole 
excuse  for  the  distinction  is  that  it  serves  a 
certain  purpose  in  emphasizing  the  power  of 
initiative  conferred  upon  all  persons.  The  pos- 
session of  a  will  puts  a  person  into  the  sphere 
of  the  supernatural.  He  ceases  to  be  the 
plaything  or  tool  of  circumstance  and  becomes 
the  master,  possibly  the  originator,  of  circum- 
stance. Wherever  a  will,  divine  or  human,  sets 
itself  to  the  fulfillment  of  a  definite  purpose, 
and  uses  circumstance  as  its  constructive  ma- 
terial, there  the  "  supernatural  "  may  be  said 
to  come  into  play.  Yet  it  is  doubtful  if  the 
word  does  not  cost  more  than  it  is  worth.  It 
is  anti-Christian  in  the  sense  that  Christianity 
has  no  real  place  for  it  or  need  of  it.  Christ's 
thought  of  God  the  Spirit  as  the  vital  divine 
Force  in  the  world  leading  men  into  all  truth 
implies  that  all  God's  processes  are  natural, 
inasmuch  as  Nature  itself  is  but  an  inclusive 
expression  for  the  sum  of  them. 


298        THE   DYNAMIC   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

This  is  not  to  deny  what  is  commonly  meant 
by  the  supernatural.  It  certainly  is  not  to 
deny  the  miraculous.  The  opening  twentieth 
century  has  had  too  large  experience  of  the 
miraculous  to  be  skeptical  about  it ;  but  the 
rule  of  faith  is  that,  as  experience  goes  on, 
the  realm  of  the  natural  grows.  The  thing  that 
once  appeared  to  be  so  out  of  the  course  of 
events  as  to  confuse  our  endeavors  to  account 
for  it  is  bound  eventually  to  find  its  place  as 
an  element  in  the  circle  of  our  larger  know- 
ledge. The  so-called  supernatural  is  but  the 
supra-normal.  It  is  not  beyond  nature,  but 
simply  beyond  our  experience  of  nature.  It  is 
not  an  interference  with  the  orderly  process 
of  the  divine  activity,  but  rather  the  glimpse 
of  new  and  unsuspected  divine  resources.  The 
province  of  faith  in  a  God  who  is  a  resident 
spiritual  Force  in  the  universe  is  to  enlarge 
the  realm  of  the  normal  until  it  shall  suffice  to- 
morrow to  include  the  supra-normal  of  to-day. 

Take,  for  instance,  the  case  of  the  long- 
distance telephone,  through  which  a  conver- 
sation is  maintained  over  a  space  of  two  hun- 
dred miles.  The  quick  alternation  of  question 
and  answer  is  an  absolutely  supernatural  oc- 
currence to  the  man  who  sees  in  it  the  travel 


NEW   HARMONIES  OF  REVELATION      299 

to  and  fro  of  sound-waves.  It  is  not  merely 
supra-normal ;  it  is  abnormal,  making  an  ap- 
parent breach  in  the  so-called  law  of  nature 
which  indicates  the  rate  at  which  sound-waves 
travel  through  air  or  copper  wire.  Upon  the 
plane  of  the  man  who  is  conversant  with  the 
normal  conduct  of  sound-waves  but  ignorant 
of  the  rules  governing  electrical  disturbance, 
this  apparently  instantaneous  transit  of  sound 
is  as  flat  a  contradiction  of  the  continuity  of 
nature  as  any  loitering  of  sun  and  moon  over 
Aijalon.  If  he  be  a  man  of  little  scientific 
faith,  he  denies  the  fact  on  the  ground  of  his 
regard  for  a  well-established  rule  of  acoustics. 
If  his  faith  be  adequate,  he  calmly  investi- 
gates, and  a  new  scientific  revelation  is  vouch- 
safed to  him.  It  was  rashly  announced  the 
other  day  that  the  discovery  of  radium  was 
likely  to  make  a  serious  breach  in  the  law  of 
the  conservation  of  energy  ;  but  the  announce- 
ment savored  strongly  of  scientific  superstition. 
The  law  of  the  conservation  of  energy  is  but 
an  expression  in  physical  terms  of  the  omnipo- 
tence and  omnipresence  of  God.  It  is  a  recog- 
nition of  the  essential  soundness  of  the  uni- 
verse, or  of  the  oneness  of  the  universe,  to 
put  it  tautologically.    It  registers  the  faith  of 


300        THE  DYNAMIC   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

science  in  a  Power  which  animates  creation, 
not  fitfully  and  spasmodically,  but  with  con- 
stant and  unfailing  adequacy.  Experience 
may  demand  modification  in  the  form  of  the 
law ;  but  the  central  truth  which  it  strives  to 
express  is  an  almost  instinctive  utterance  of 
both  religion  and  physical  science.  It  is  the 
cry  of  heart  and  flesh  alike  for  the  living  — 
that  is,  the  adequate  and  constant  —  God. 

It  will  of  course  be  objected  that  this  is 
pantheism.  To  which  the  instant  answer  must 
be  made  that  it  is  as  far  as  possible  from  being 
a  pantheism  which  makes  personality  a  late, 
perhaps  a  last,  product  of  a  world  process. 
Personality  is  primary  and  fundamental.  The 
Soul  of  the  Universe  must  be  thought  of  as 
a  Person,  if  He  is  to  be  rationally  regarded 
at  all.  To  say  that  this  confession  of  faith 
in  a  resident  executive  Spirit  is  to  make  a 
god  of  the  material  universe  is  like  saying 
that  because  I  rejoice  to  hear  my  friend's 
footfall  and  to  recognize  his  face,  therefore 
the  face  and  the  feet  with  their  fellow  mem- 
bers comprise  my  friend.  They  are  but  signs 
of  his  presence  and  agents  of  his  will.  There 
is  no  discernible  element  of  reason,  feeling,  or 
will  in  the  physical  components  of  them,  and 


NEW  HARMONIES   OF  REVELATION      301 

yet  they  are  the  daily  tools  for  expressing  and 
giving  efficacy  to  reason,  feeling,  and  will. 

We  pass  on  to  note  the  exaggerated  anti- 
nomy between  the  physical  and  the  spiritual. 
As  an  antinomy  it  is  false.  The  physical  is 
but  an  expression  of  the  spiritual.  The  poets, 
big  and  little,  have  always  felt  it,  and  thereby 
established  their  claim  to  the  divine  afflatus. 
A  century  has  passed  since  Coleridge  wrote : 

"  And  what  if  all  animated  nature 
Be  but  organic  harps  diversely  framed, 
That  tremble  into  thought,  as  o'er  them  sweeps 
Plastic  and  vast  one  intellectual  breeze, 
At  once  the  soul  of  each,  and  God  of  all."  l 

It  seems  but  day  before  yesterday  since  T.  E. 
Brown,  the  gifted  Manx  schoolmaster,  put  the 
same  truth  in  far  less  conventional  form  :  — 

MY  GARDEN 

A  garden  is  a  lovesome  thing,  God  wot! 

Rose  plot, 

Fringed  pool, 

Ferned  grot  — 

The  veriest  school 

Of  peace ;  and  yet  the  fool 

Contends  that  God  is  not  — 

Not  God  !  in  gardens  when  the  eve  is  cool  ? 

Nay,  but  I  have  a  sign ; 

'T  is  very  sure  God  walks  in  mine. 

1  Quoted  by  Allen,  Continuity  of  Christian  Thought,  p.  404. 


302        THE  DYNAMIC   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

The  curse  of  dualism  in  both  religion  and 
physical  science  has  been  that  it  has  always 
incited  its  votaries  to  take  sides  as  between 
the  physical  and  the  spiritual.  Asceticism  has 
resulted  in  one  case,  materialism  in  the  other. 
Both  are  essentially  counsels  of  fear.  One 
undertakes  to  deny  the  use  of  the  physical, 
the  other  the  existence  of  anything  except 
the  physical.  The  so-called  Christian  Scien- 
tist, with  his  theoretical  denial  of  the  exist- 
ence of  matter,  or  pain,  or  sin,  is  the  modern 
protagonist  of  the  former  school.  He  does 
not  go  to  the  length  of  preaching  asceticism, 
but  he  should  do  so  in  order  to  be  consistent. 
Nor  does  the  materialist  commonly  carry  out 
his  philosophy  to  its  gross  and  hopeless  con- 
clusion. Yet  the  old  gibe  that  in  his  expla- 
nation of  experience  he  is  like  a  nurse  who, 
having  attempted  to  bathe  a  child,  throws 
away  the  child  with  the  water,  has  its  appli- 
cation. Precisely  as  the  ascetic  disdains  God's 
physical  means  of  self -revelation,  so  the  mate- 
rialist disdains  the  revealing  Spirit  Himself. 
Neither  has  a  sufficiently  ample  conception  of 
the  universe,  and  the  range  of  possible  human 
experience,  to  make  his  thinking  adequate  to 
the  larger  demands  of  life.   Neither  can  quite 


NEW   HARMONIES   OF  REVELATION      303 

slake  the  human  thirst  for  a  consistent  me- 
dium in  which  to  live.  To  each  we  can  use  the 
words  of  the  woman  of  Samaria,  "  Sir,  thou 
hast  nothing  to  draw  with,  and  the  well  is 
deep."  x 

What  we  call  the  physical  is  but  a  sign  to 
our  senses  of  an  underlying  reality.  The 
would-be  materialist  is  himself  one  of  our  best 
witnesses  to  the  truth  of  this  affirmation.  In 
a  rather  bumptious  and  sophomoric  little  book 
entitled  "  New  Conceptions  in  Science,"  Mr. 
Carl  Snyder  has  a  chapter  upon  "How  the 
Brain  Thinks."  It  is  distinctly  materialistic 
in  the  ordinary  sense  of  that  term  ;  but  none 
the  less  interesting  and  suggestive.  The  most 
suggestive  thing  in  it,  however,  is  the  conclu- 
sion at  which  the  author  arrives.  After  point- 
ing out  that  thought  or  consciousness  may 
"  be  defined  in  physical  terms  as  the  stimula- 
tion of  a  relatively  wide  area  of  the  brain," 
he  goes  on  to  show  that  this  stimulation  can 
be  effected  only  by  means  of  so-called  "  asso- 
ciation fibres."  Without  these  "association 
fibres  "  there  can  be  no  consciousness.  When 
they  are  present,  the  currents  or  waves  which 

1  Cf.  A.  H.  Crauford,  Enigmas  of  the  Spiritual  Life,  p.  72. 
A  singularly  suggestive  volume. 


304        THE  DYNAMIC   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

pass  along  them  are,  as  in  the  case  of  the 
twitching  which  can  be  induced  in  the  legs 
of  a  dead  frog,  electric  in  their  nature.  This, 
according  to  Mr.  Snyder,  is  sufficient  evidence 
that  conscious  life  is  to  be  defined  in  terms 
of  "  association  fibres  "  and  a  "  variation  of 
electric  potential."  He  is  not,  however,  willing 
to  be  counted  a  "  crass  materialist,"  and  pat- 
ronizingly notices  Huxley's  unholy  alliance 
with  Bishop  Berkeley  in  an  endeavor  himself 
to  escape  the  epithet.  "For  this,"  he  con- 
cludes, "  there  is  no  need  now.  There  is  no 
'  dead '  matter.  In  some  degree  all  matter 
lives." *  It  is  a  pregnant  conclusion,  admirably 
illustrating  the  way  in  which  men  who  dis- 
trust everything  but  the  "  physical "  yet  read 
into  their  conclusions  in  the  realm  of  the 
"physical"  the  elements  which,  wrhen  devel- 
oped, account  for  the  "  spiritual."  As  Mar- 
tineau  once  put  it,  "  With  a  germ,  if  you  can 
secure  it,  no  doubt  a  great  deal  can  be  done, 
and  it  is  a  clever  device  of  the  physical  ex- 
pounder to  pack  one,  unnoticed,  into  every 
atom  in  readiness  to  yield  what  he  wants  be- 
yond mere  mechanical  phenomena.  .  .  .  We 

1  Snyder,  New  Conceptions  in  Science,  pp.  268-270. 


NEW  HARMONIES  OF  REVELATION      305 

know  of  germs  only  as  the  product  of  perfect 
beings." x 

It  might  as  well  be  admitted  first  as  last 
that  the  physical  and  spiritual  represent  but 
different  aspects  of  one  inclusive  experience. 
Christ  seemed  so  to  regard  it.  The  material 
world  in  which  He  found  Himself  was  all 
alive,  and  "  every  common  bush  on  fire  with 
God."  The  physical  is  the  temporary  form 
which  the  eternal  Energy  assumes  in  the 
working  out  of  transcendent  purposes.  It 
can  never  comprehend  or  include,  nor,  on  the 
other  hand,  can  it  ever  exist  without,  the  spir- 
itual. The  world  passeth  away  —  the  form 
is  ever  changing — but  the  Energy  which  is 
its  ground  and  reason  abideth  forever. 

Some  years  have  now  elapsed  since  very 
much  has  been  said  upon  the  subject  of 
"  natural  goodness."  But  there  was  a  day 
when  characters  of  the  Sydney  Carton  type 
in  fiction  raised  grave  questions  in  the  breasts 
of  conscientious  and  faithful  people.  What 
was  to  be  said  about  the  generosity,  some- 
times reaching  to  the  point  of  self-immola- 
tion, depicted  in  these  lives?   How  was  it  to 

1  Hours  of  Thought,  ii.  112. 


306        THE  DYNAMIC   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

be  accounted  for  in  view  of  their  occasional 
apparent  divorce  from  religion,  and  their  fre- 
quent divorce  from  orthodoxy?  By  what 
standard  was  the  efficient  goodness  of  one 
of  Bret  Harte's  Argonauts  to  be  judged  ? 
What  standing  in  the  light  of  the  Gospel 
had  Mr.  John  Hay's  conclusion  concerning 
Jim  Bludso,  the  rough  but  heroic  engineer, 
who  held  his  burning  boat  against  the  river- 
bank  until  the  last  passenger  escaped? 

"  He  seen  his  duty,  a  dead  sure  thing,  — 
And  went  for  it  there  and  then  ; 
And  Christ  ain't  going  to  be  too  hard 
On  a  man  that  died  for  men." 

The  question,  to  be  sure,  was  rather  an  aca- 
demic one  in  so  far  as  these  characters  in 
fiction  were  concerned ;  but  it  had  an  imme- 
diately practical  side.  For  these  figments  of 
imaginative  brains  sometimes  materialized 
into  solid  flesh  and  walked  our  streets.  The 
problem  of  their  fate  as  men  of  God  or  chil- 
dren of  the  devil  was  awfully  and  patheti- 
cally real  to  people  who,  humbly  rejoicing  in 
their  own  faith  in  God  as  revealed  in  Jesus 
Christ,  yet  trembled  for  their  friends,  be- 
cause these  friends,  though  good  men  and 
women,  showing  the  fruits  of  the  Spirit  in 


NEW  HARMONIES  OF  REVELATION      307 

their  lives,  seemed  to  give  no  sign  of  the 
technical  experience  of  conversion.  Here  stood 
the  Scripture,  "  There  is  none  other  name 
under  heaven  given  among  men  whereby  we 
must  be  saved ; "  here,  too,  were  the  evident 
fruits  of  the  Spirit.  How  were  they  to  re- 
solve the  contradiction  ?  We  all  know  the 
old  phrase  about  the  "  uncovenanted  mercies" 
to  which  such  souls  were  commended ;  but 
we  forget,  or  perhaps  incline  to  be  a  little 
contemptuous  of,  the  deep  searchings  of  heart 
and  the  fervent  prayer  which  their  lot  called 
forth. 

The  contradiction  is  resolved  only  when 
we  realize  that  all  goodness  is  of  one  funda- 
mental sort ;  it  springs  from  one  source  ;  it  is 
instinct  with  one  life ;  and  looks  toward  one 
goal.  The  Spirit  to  whom  Christ  introduced 
the  disciples  was  to  lead  men  into  all  kinds  of 
truth  and  right  living.  He  was  to  prove  Him- 
self the  great  Dynamic  of  Goodness  in  the 
world,  despising  no  instruments  because  of 
their  imperfections,  and  being  balked  by  no 
conventions  of  men.  He  was  to  be  as  ready 
as  Jesus  Himself  to  sit  at  meat  with  publi- 
cans and  sinners.  The  ultimate  question  which 
was  to  decide  a  man's  fate  was  whether  or  no 


308        THE   DYNAMIC   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

he  accepted  the  Spirit  of  Goodness  in  such  a 
degree  as  to  make  it  the  really  efficient  force 
in  his  life.  The  moment  that  this  came  to 
pass  he  was  a  saved  man.  A  long  and  ardu- 
ous journey  might  well  remain  before  this 
new  force  in  him  should  gain  the  upper  hand 
over  the  evil  self  in  such  degree  as  to  give 
him  the  joy  of  conscious  and  full  discipleship. 
But  the  journey  was  begun  ;  and  it  was  none 
the  less  in  the  right  direction  and  sure  of  its 
goal  because  it  sometimes  missed  the  conven- 
tional halting-places  by  the  way. 

When,  for  instance,  Carlyle  spoke  of  his 
"  conversion,"  men  have  generally  taken  it 
for  granted  that  he  used  the  word  in  a  sense 
quite  different  from  that  in  which  it  is  com- 
monly received.  Yet  the  difference  is  one  of 
form  rather  than  of  substance.  Any  man  is 
converted  when  a  great  effluence  of  the  Spirit 
of  all  Truth  takes  such  possession  of  him  as  to 
become  dynamic  in  his  life,  coordinating  his 
scattered  and  hitherto  aimless  activities  and 
enduing  his  personality  with  coherence  and 
force.  This  is  as  far  as  possible  from  saying 
that  he  at  once  becomes  a  perfect  instrument 
in  the  Spirit's  hands.  Nothing  is  more  char- 
acteristic of  the  Genius  of  Christianity   than 


NEW  HARMONIES  OF  REVELATION      309 

His  catholicity.  He  uses,  with  an  ingenuity  as 
divine  as  His  charity,  all  sorts  and  conditions 
of  imperfect  means.  He  manages  to  make 
the  most  absurdly  inadequate  provision  of 
loaves  and  fishes  serve  for  a  multitude,  and 
then  deigns  to  collect  even  the  fragments 
which  the  multitude  He  has  just  fed  are 
ready  to  contemn. 

"  I  am  aware,"  says  Burke  somewhere, 
"  that  the  age  is  not  what  we  all  wish,  but 
I  am  sure  that  the  only  means  to  check  its 
degeneracy  is  heartily  to  concur  in  whatever 
is  best  in  our  time."  It  is  an  inspired  utter- 
ance, instinct  with  the  divine  charity  of  the 
Spirit.  The  method  of  development  through 
a  resident  and  immanent  Force  which  ever 
endeavors  to  make  the  best  out  of  that  which 
has  the  savor  of  health  and  life  in  it  is  the 
way  of  the  Kingdom's  advance.  There  are  not 
two  kinds  of  goodness.  There  are  not  two 
sorts  of  truth.  Wherever  goodness  appears 
there  the  Spirit  lives,  and  wherever  truth 
is  uttered  there  the  Spirit  speaks. 

Hence  it  follows  that  we  have  no  cause  to 
fear  the  approach  of  honest  criticism  to  any 
of  our  sacred  writings.  Criticism  of  the  gen- 
uine sort  is  a  simple  endeavor  to  get  at  the 


310        THE  DYNAMIC   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

thing  that  is,  and  to  make  it  unmistakably 
plain.  Its  method  may  be  blundering  and 
fatuous,  to  be  sure,  and  so  far  forth  there  is  a 
place  and  a  call  for  the  criticus  criticorum  ; 
but  the  one  ground  that  the  critic  of  the 
critics  should  forever  eschew  is  the  claim  that 
the  Scriptures  are  sacrosanct  and  therefore 
exempt  from  the  critical  approach.  To  claim 
an  inspiration  for  them  that  makes  them  a 
magic  means  of  communicating  divine  truth 
is  to  put  a  slight  upon  the  work  of  the  Spirit 
to  Whom  it  was  Christ's  mission  to  introduce 
men.  All  inspiration  which  reveals  the  truth 
and  enables  a  man  to  communicate  it  is  of 
one  fundamental  sort.  There  is  no  question 
but  that  Holy  Scripture  brings  truth  into 
such  vital  relation  to  the  mind,  heart,  and 
will  as  to  minister  to  salvation.  In  a  sense 
that  is  unique  the  message  of  Scripture  has 
proven  itself  to  be  an  integrating  and  co- 
ordinating force  in  human  life.  It  has 
made  for  oneness  in  thought  and  conduct. 
Wherever  its  immediate  influence  has  seemed 
for  the  moment  to  be  divisive  and  disinte- 
grating, it  has  been  only  by  way  of  prepara- 
tion for  a  unity  that  should  be  real  instead 
of   superficial   and    formal.    In  this  positive 


NEW  HARMONIES  OF  REVELATION      311 

and  constructive  ability  which  it  has  shown 
to  reveal  truth  in  terms  of  goodness  lies  the 
evidence  of  its  inspiration.  The  fruits  of 
the  Spirit  grow  in  the  soil  which  Scripture 
teaching  has  cleansed,  enriched,  and  planted. 
Hence  we  argue  that  Scripture  lives  with  the 
Spirit's  life ;  the  message  of  Scripture  intelli- 
gently and  generously  construed  is  the  Spirit's 
message,  and  thus  authoritative.  On  the  other 
hand,  we  forget  one  of  Christ's  greatest  and 
most  significant  words  when  we  proceed  to 
deny  a  cognate  and  legitimately  related  inspi- 
ration to  other  and  later  writings.  The  divine 
Presence  was  to  be  immediate  and  appreci- 
able in  a  new  sense  after  Christ's  revealing 
sojourn  with  men.  He  was  to  be  known  as 
the  Helper  or  Comforter  —  practically  a  new 
name  for  deity.  Is  it  to  be  supposed  that 
He  would  no  longer  use  the  written  word  as 
a  means  of  translating  His  message  to  the 
heart?  The  notion  that  inspired  writing 
ceased  with  the  composition  of  the  Fourth 
Gospel  is  altogether  out  of  harmony  with 
that  Gospel's  teaching.  It  is  as  mechanical 
and  irreverent  as  the  notion  that  the  Fourth 
Gospel's  own  claim  to  inspiration  is  immedi- 
ately   dependent    upon    its    exact   date   and 


312        THE  DYNAMIC   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

authorship.  Inspiration  is  too  subtle  and  per- 
vasive a  matter  to  be  confined  to  one  century 
or  one  group  of  men.  All  great  writers  who 
have  reached  the  hearts  and  beneficently  in- 
fluenced the  conduct  of  men  have  known  in 
some  measure  the  self-same  Power  at  work 
in  and  through  them  which  wrought  by  the 
hands  of  Isaiah  and  Paul. 

The  reader  may  recall  the  admirable  criti- 
cism of  Dickens  by  Thackeray  in  which  this 
doctrine  is  implicit.  It  occurs  at  the  close  of 
the  lecture  upon  "  Charity  and  Humor,"  and  is 
too  long  for  quotation  ;  but  I  cull  a  sentence 
or  two.  "  As  for  the  charities  of  Mr.  Dickens, 
multiplied  kindnesses  which  he  has  conferred 
upon  us  all ;  upon  our  children  ;  upon  people 
educated  and  uneducated ;  upon  the  myri- 
ads here  and  at  home,1  who  speak  our  com- 
mon tongue ;  have  not  you,  have  not  I,  all 
of  us  reason  to  be  thankful  to  this  kind 
friend,  who  soothed  and  charmed  so  many 
hours,  brought  pleasure  and  sweet  laughter 
to  so  many  homes ;  made  such  multitudes  of 
children  happy ;  endowed  us  with  such  a 
sweet  store  of  gracious  thoughts,  fair  fancies, 
soft  sympathies,  hearty  enjoyments  ?    There 

1  This  lecture  was  first  delivered  in  America. 


NEW   HARMONIES  OF  REVELATION      313 

are  creations  of  Mr.  Dickens's  which  seem  to 
me  to  rank  as  personal  benefits ;  figures  so 
delightful,  that  one  feels  happier  and  better 
for  knowing  them,  as  one  does  for  being 
brought  into  the  society  of  very  good  men 
and  women.  The  atmosphere  in  which  these 
people  live  is  wholesome  to  breathe  in  ;  you 
feel  that  to  be  allowed  to  speak  to  them  is  a 
personal  kindness  ;  you  come  away  better  for 
your  contact  with  them ;  your  hands  seem 
cleaner  from  having  the  privilege  of  shaking 
theirs.  ...  I  may  quarrel  with  Mr.  Dickens's 
art  a  thousand  and  a  thousand  times,  I  de- 
light and  wonder  at  his  genius ;  I  recognize 
in  it  —  I  speak  with  awe  and  reverence  —  a 
commission  from  that  Divine  Beneficence, 
whose  blessed  task  we  know  it  will  one  day 
be  to  wipe  every  tear  from  every  eye.  Thank- 
fully I  take  my  share  of  the  feast  of  love  and 
kindness  which  this  gentle,  and  generous, 
and  charitable  soul  has  contributed  to  the 
happiness  of  the  world.  I  take  and  enjoy  my 
share,  and  say  a  benediction  for  the  meal."  * 
This  is  not  to  ascribe  to  "  David  Copper- 
field  "  the  spiritual  significance  of  the  Epistle 

1  W.  M.  Thackeray,    Works,   Biographical  Edition,  vii. 
724,  725. 


314        THE  DYNAMIC  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

to  the  Galatians.  But  it  is  to  advance  the 
claim,  and  that  upon  the  highest  authority, 
that  in  so  far  as  the  modern  master  of  fiction 
proved  his  possession  of  a  special  commission 
to  proclaim  the  worth  of  peace  and  good-will 
to  men,  his  inspiration  is  of  the  same  funda- 
mental nature  as  that  which  gave  illumination 
and  authority  to  St.  Paul. 

Scarce  any  question  has  seemed  more  vital 
to  thoughtful  men  during  the  last  four  hun- 
dred years  than  the  inquiry  into  the  Ultimate 
Source  of  Authority.  It  has  not  always  been 
clearly  and  succinctly  stated.  Yet  it  underlay 
the  Reformation ;  and  it  has  been  implicit 
in  every  great  theological  and  ethical  con- 
troversy since.  The  three  quarters  in  which 
this  ultimate  authority  has  been  sought  and 
wherein  it  has  been  supposed  by  some  to 
reside  have  been  the  Church,  the  Bible,  and 
the  Reason.  Each  has  been  made  to  claim 
the  right  of  ipse  dixit  by  disciples  who  loved 
it  not  wisely,  but  too  well,  to  gain  any 
exact  notion  of  its  scope  and  office.  The 
Romanist  has  accepted  the  authority  of  the 
Church  only  to  be  driven  to  bolster  it  up 
by  the  sorry  expedient  of  papal  infallibility. 
Too  many  a  Protestant,  departing  in  some 


NEW   HARMONIES   OF  REVELATION      315 

measure  from  the  purpose  of  the  first  genera- 
tion of  reformers,  has  looked  to  the  Bible  for 
the  last  and  authoritative  word,  forgetting 
that  the  Bible  is  a  literature  of  beginnings. 
In  so  far  as  he  has  become  a  bibliolater  he 
has  been  threatened  with  confusion  by  every 
new  discovery  in  the  realm  of  Biblical  science. 
No  man  more  than  he  would  have  cause  to 
dread  the  reappearance  of  the  lost  Book  of 
Jasher,  or  the  discovery  of  a  genuine  and 
hitherto  unknown  saying  of  Christ. 

The  rationalist  has  been  quite  as  narrow 
and  inadequate  in  his  treatment  of  the  Reason 
as  his  fellows  in  their  view  of  Church  and 
Book.  Using  it,  and  philosophizing  about  it, 
as  though  it  were  nothing  more  than  a  faculty 
of  ratiocination,  or  a  device  for  grinding  out 
syllogisms,  he  has  sought  in  it  an  authority 
practically  as  external  as  Church  or  Book 
could  be.  With  a  fine  contempt  for  the  "  su- 
perstitions "  of  his  brethren,  he  has  ground 
his  logic-chopping  machine  only  to  discover 
its  product  to  be  so  meagre  and  jejune  that 
men  would  not  feed  upon  it.  Under  the 
regime  of  the  rationalist,  as  in  Thomson's 
"City  of  Dreadful  Night,"  Faith  is  poisoned, 
Hope  starves,  and  Love  suffers  violence. 


316        THE  DYNAMIC   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

What  shall  we  say  to  these  things  ?  Is  the 
search  for  authority  vain  ?  Is  life  to  struggle 
on  without  direction  ?  Is  the  deep  longing  of 
the  human  heart  for  an  infallible  guide  and 
stay  to  be  treated  like  the  demon  in  the  para- 
ble, turned  out  into  desert  places  and  left  to 
wander  there  until  perchance  it  find  evil  com- 
pany and  come  back  to  make  its  old  home 
worse  than  ever?  No,  not  while  Church, 
Bible,  and  Reason  remain.  For  the  truth  is 
that  man's  dependence  upon  these  three  au- 
thorities has  been  wrong  only  in  so  far  as 
it  has  been  ill-proportioned  and  exclusive. 
There  is  authority  in  the  Church,  inasmuch  as 
the  Church  comprehends  the  Christian  expe- 
rience of  nearly  twenty  centuries.  There  is 
authority  in  the  Bible,  and  very  great  author- 
ity. For  the  Bible,  more  than  anything  else, 
fixes  the  Christian  tradition  ;  in  the  most  suc- 
cinct and  intelligible  form  it  hands  down  to 
us  from  Christ  the  secret  of  turning  truth 
into  goodness ;  and  it  opens  a  veritable  way 
of  salvation.  Evangelist  is  still,  and  bids  fair 
always  to  be,  the  best  guide  to  the  Wicket 
Gate,  through  which  men  on  the  way  to  the 
Celestial  City  need  to  pass.  The  Bible  is  a 
chief  servant  of  Christianity  ;  but  "  the  ser- 


NEW  HARMONIES  OF  REVELATION      317 

vant  need  not  be  perfect ;  it  suffices  that  she 
be  faithful." * 

Again,  every  authoritative  word  of  life  to 
a  man  must  be  interpreted  by  his  Reason  be- 
fore it  can  be  translated  into  an  act.  But  the 
Reason  is  more  and  better  than  a  device  for 
the  making  of  syllogisms.  Its  conclusions  in 
the  realm  of  faith  and  conduct  are  safe  only 
when  feeling  and  will  bring  their  sympathetic 
assistance  to  the  intellect.  Let  us  grant  that 
they  have  no  power  to  set  a  verdict  arbitrarily 
aside.  They  do  have  power,  however,  to  order 
a  reexamination  of  the  evidence  with  especial 
reference  to  its  completeness  and  adequacy. 
The  Ultimate  Source  of  Authority  is  not  an 
objective  thing.  It  has  never  been  fixed,  codi- 
fied, and  finished.  Christ's  enunciation  of  the 
Law  of  Love  was  but  the  statement  of  its 
principle.  He  seemed  to  shrink  from  explicit 
dicta  upon  specific  acts.  Some  of  His  most 
gracious  and  significant  words  were  wrapped 
up  in  cryptic  forms,  so  that  the  living  kernel 
miofht  seem  the  better  worth  having  in  COn- 
trast  with  the  husk  which  must  be  reft  away. 
Indeed,  it  might  be  claimed  without  extrava- 
gance and  irreverence  that  He  thought  of  His 

1  Sabatier,  Religions  of  Authority,  p.  162. 


318        THE  DYNAMIC   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

own  human  body  as  such  a  husk,  which  must 
needs  be  removed  before  His  permanent  and 
abiding  Spirit  could  have  scope. 

In  the  Spirit  of  unity  and  power,  which 
coordinates  and  integrates  all  being  into  a 
universe,  the  ultimate  Source  of  Authority  is 
to  be  sought.  Not  until  this  Spirit  is  found 
out  unto  perfection  can  the  Source  of  Author- 
ity be  comprehended  in  its  fullness.  But  just 
because  of  this  same  Spirit's  immanence,  au- 
thority fitted  to,  and  adequate  for,  the  guidance 
of  life  is  always  at  hand.  It  is  implicit  in  the 
experience  of  men.  The  conscience  of  Chris- 
tendom, educated  by  the  Bible,  by  the  expe- 
rience of  the  Church,  by  the  partial  light 
issuing  from  the  ethnic  faiths  and  applied 
to  specific  cases  of  conduct  by  the  human 
Reason  acting  with  a  full  consciousness  of  its 
limitations,  cannot  go  far  wrong.  If  it  be  true 
to  itself,  it  will  not  miss  the  mark. 

But  this  thing  is  to  be  noted.  The  author- 
ity exercised  by  the  conscience  of  Christen- 
dom is  never  a  complete  and  fixed  quantity. 
Nor  is  it  ever  based  merely  upon  the  author- 
ity of  the  past.  It  is  future-regarding.  It 
considers  precedent,  but  it  does  not  regard 
precedent  as  its  master.    It  counts  upon  an 


NEW  HARMONIES  OF  REVELATION      319 

increasing  revelation.  It  welcomes  new  expe- 
rience and  the  new  duties  which  it  will  bring. 
Its  animating  principle  is  the  Golden  Rule. 
Its  norm  is  the  law  of  an  endless  life.  Its 
application  to  specific  conduct  is  to  be  rever- 
ently ordered  by  that  chief  practical  charisma 
of  the  Spirit  known  as  Common  Sense. 


APPENDIX 

SYNOPSIS  OF  ARGUMENT 

In  this  brief  statement  of  the  Dynamic  of  Chris- 
tianity I  have  asked  my  readers  to  proceed  upon 
the  principle  that  the  influence  of  Christ  in  the 
world  is  a  phenomenon  worth  accounting  for ;  that 
theology,  viewed  as  the  study  and  explanation  of 
Christian  experience,  makes  a  legitimate  demand 
upon  the  attention  of  thinking  men  ;  and  that  a  total 
conception  of  the  universe  which  may  minister  to 
that  coherence  of  life  and  thought  which  we  call 
peace  is  to  be  ardently  desired.  (Cf.  Sabatier, 
Eeligions  of  Authority,  pp.  377,  378.) 

With  a  view  to  the  discovery  of  the  underlying 
principle  which  has  given  to  Christianity  its  tre- 
mendous vitality  and  its  singular  applicability  to 
an  ever-changing  environment,  I  first  developed 
the  premiss  that  the  Science  of  Christian  Expe- 
rience must  take  impartial  account  of  facts,  not 
merely  with  willingness,  but  with  the  same  avidity 
which  marks  other  sciences.  (Chapter  I.,  Intro- 
duction.) It  must  keep  a  multitude  of  its  conclu- 
sions open.  It  must  expect  and  welcome  change 
and  development. 

This  introduction  was  followed  by  a  chapter  de- 
signed to  characterize  the  attitude  of  last  century 


322  APPENDIX 

—  especially  that  portion  of  it  which  has  elapsed 
since  the  promulgation  of  the  Doctrine  of  Devel- 
opment—  toward  the  subject-matter  of  our  dis- 
cussion. At  its  close  some  special  reasons  were 
cited  to  justify  a  confident  and  expectant  attitude 
on  the  part  of  the  theologian  of  to-day.  (Chap- 
ter II.,  The  Zeitgeist.)  I  then  proceeded  to  note  the 
material  with  which  our  inquiry  would  be  forced 
to  deal.  Three  chapters  were  given  to  a  consider- 
ation of  the  present  status  of  thought  among  the 
rank  and  file  of  intelligent  people  upon  the  Science 
of  Religious  Experience,  or  Theology  (Chapter 
III.,  The  Present  State  of  Theological  Thought 
among  the  People),  upon  religion  as  life's  guide 
and  inspiration  (Chapter  IV.,  The  Religion  of  the 
People),  and  upon  the  relations  of  men  to  one 
another  in  society  (Chapter  V.,  The  Social  Unrest). 
The  result  of  this  inquiry  served  to  emphasize  the 
almost  paralyzing  incoherence  of  popular  thought 
upon  these  great  matters  which  at  the  same  time 
absolutely  refuse  to  be  banished  from  men's  minds. 
They  represent  some  of  life's  most  immediate  and 
insistent  interests.  They  are  restive  under  the  ipse 
dixit  of  external  authority  ;  yet  the  problems  which 
they  present  have  a  singular  affinity  for  Chris- 
tianity. Wisely  or  unwisely,  men  are  always  feel- 
ing that  there  is  balm  in  Christianity's  Gilead  for 
their  religious  and  social  wounds  if  only  they  could 
get  it  applied.  As  Professor  Peabody  has  put  it, 
"This  is  one  of  the  most  surprising  traits  of  the 
Gospel.    It  seems  to  each  age  to  have  been  written 


APPENDIX  323 

for  the  sake  of  the  special  problems  which  at  the 
moment  appear  most  pressing."   (Jesus  Christ  and  ' 
the  Social  Question,  p.  74.) 

It  seemed  worth  while,  therefore,  to  look  into  the 
teachings  of  Christ  for  some  central  principle  vital 
enough  to  be  the  resident  force  in  a  permanent  and 
ever-developing  influence  upon  life.  The  hypothe- 
sis upon  which  the  remainder  of  the  discussion  has 
proceeded  is  that  this  principle  is  to  be  found  in 
Christ's  doctrine  —  sometimes  neglected  almost  to 
the  point  of  oblivion,  and  sometimes  maltreated 
into  shapes  of  wild  superstition  —  of  the  Spirit. 
(Chapter  VI.,  The  Thesis.)  In  the  chapters  fol- 
lowing, this  thesis  was  tested  by  the  Christian 
tradition  as  comprised  in  the  Bible  (Chapter  VII., 
The  Witness  of  Scripture),  by  the  corporate  expe- 
rience of  the  Church  (Chapter  VIII.,  The  Witness 
of  the  Christian  Church),  and  by  the  testimony  of 
individuals  concerning  the  moving  springs  of  their 
own  religious  or  irreligious  lives  (Chapter  IX., 
The  Witness  of  Individual  Experience).  Our  in- 
vestigation appeared  to  go  far  to  validate  the  claim 
that  in  this  doctrine  of  the  Spirit  as  the  immanent 
or  resident  Force  in  the  universe,  the  Ground  of 
phenomena,  physical  and  spiritual,  the  Revealer  of 
truth  in  every  department  of  experience,  we  have  a 
vital  and  coordinating  principle,  which  puts  the 
phenomena  of  the  religious  life  and  of  physical 
science  into  natural  and  harmonious  relation. 

The  concluding  chapters  were  devoted  to  a  con- 
sideration of  some  changes  in  popular  definition 


324  APPENDIX 

and  some  new  harmonies  of  revelation  which  must 
be  expected  and  ought  to  be  welcomed  as  the  re- 
sult of  this  closer  application  of  the  Genius  of 
Christianity  to  our  thinking  and  doing.  Chapter 
X.  set  forth  the  new  freedom  which  this  Dynamic 
of  Christianity  confers  upon  faith.  This  principle 
is  one  adapted  to  deliver  men  from  fear  and  to 
clothe  them  with  peace.  It  is  a  doctrine  of  uni- 
versal religious  application.  Its  truth  not  only 
makes  appeal  to  the  imagination,  but  is  capable  of 
apprehension  by  the  reason  and  of  translation  into 
terms  of  conduct  (pp.  221-233).  More  specifi- 
cally :  — 

(1)  It  makes  men  at  home  in  the  present  (pp. 
233-237). 

(2)  It  gives  wholesome  elasticity  to  their  insti- 
tutions, affording  adequate  room  for  growth  in 
creeds,  worship,  sacraments,  and  polity  (pp.  237- 
246). 

(3)  It  exalts  Reason  into  its  true  place  as  a 
chief  agent  of  Revelation  (pp.  246-251). 

(4)  It  enables  us  to  welcome  the  results  of  his- 
torical and  philosophical  criticism  (pp.  251-253). 

(5)  It  makes  clear  the  real  religious  status  of 
every  man  who  loves  the  truth  and  tries  to  do  it 
(pp.  253,  254). 

Chapter  XI.,  entitled  The  New  Meaning  of  Some 
Old  Words,  developed  the  thesis  that  all  words 
are  sacred  in  proportion  as  they  have  come  to  con- 
note genuine  experience.  In  view  of  the  principles 
already  established,  all  of    Religion's    definitions 


APPENDIX  325 

must  be  framed  and  its  words  used  in  expectation 
of  an  increase  in  content.  Then  followed  the  appli- 
cation of  this  principle  to  such  terms  as  God  (p. 
260),  the  Trinity  (p.  263),  Sin  (p.  267),  Religion 
(p.  270),  Salvation  (p.  272),  Atonement  (p.  274), 
the  Church  (p.  277),  the  Bible  and  Inspiration 
(p.  279),  and  a  brief  discussion  of  the  permanent 
significance  of  such  a  doctrine  as  that  of  the  Vir- 
gin Birth  (p.  284). 

The  concluding  Chapter  XII.,  on  the  New  Har- 
monies of  Revelation,  emphasized  the  fact  that  the 
source  and  ground  of  all  knowledge  is  One,  and 
that  every  increase  in  knowledge  is  a  revelation ; 
discovery  and  revelation  being  but  different  terms 
for  different  aspects  of  the  same  experience  (pp. 
294-296) ;  so  with  "  natural  "  and  "  revealed  "  reli- 
gion (p.  296)  ;  so  also  with  natural  and  supernat- 
ural (pp.  296,  297),  and  the  place  of  miracle  (pp. 
298-300).  There  is  no  room  in  the  universe  for 
any  fundamental  contradiction  of  experience,  and 
everywhere  the  physical  is  but  an  expression  of 
the  spiritual  (pp.  300-305).  (Cf.  the  significance 
of  "  natural  goodness,"  pp.  305-309.)  The  Ulti- 
mate Source  of  Authority  is  not  an  objective  thing, 
fixed,  codified,  and  finished  ;  but  really  existent  in 
the  Spirit  of  Unity  and  Power  (pp.  314-319). 

I  am  as  far  as  possible  from  claiming  that  this 
principle  is  new,  or  even  that  its  enunciation  is 
original;  but  however  old  the  truth,  its  restate- 
ment will  never  be  hackneyed  or  out  of  date  as 
long  as  men  insist  upon  its  practical  neglect. 


326  APPENDIX 

Objection  will  be  made  that  the  endeavor  thus 
to  coordinate  our  thinking  upon  "  religion  "  and 
"  science  "  looks  in  the  direction  of  pantheism  ; 
but  it  has  already  been  noted  that  while  pantheism 
as  commonly  understood  practically  denies  person- 
ality, the  doctrine  of  a  Resident  and  Executive 
Spiritual  Power  makes  personality  fundamental. 
Some  will  say  that  the  positions  taken  here  are 
destructive  of  much  that  has  been  counted  vital 
and  distinctive  in  Christianity.  To  which  the  only 
answer  that  need  be  made  is  that  every  item  of 
genuine  Christian  experience  is  held  to  be  signifi- 
cant and  therefore  sacred ;  that  no  great  doctrine 
which  has  moulded  life  is  valueless  or  without 
vital  meaning,  and  that  such  rearrangement  of 
ranks  as  reinforcements  necessitate  is  in  reality  a 
constructive  process,  even  though  the  old  alignment 
suffer.  If  our  discussion  signify  anything,  it  is  that 
there  is  room  in  the  Christian  conception  of  the 
universe  and  man's  place  in  it  for  all  truth  ;  that 
the  old  distinction  between  sacred  and  secular 
truth  has  no  foundation ;  that  revelation  and  dis- 
covery are  but  different  aspects  of  the  self-mani- 
festation of  one  efficient  and  self-consistent  Power ; 
and  that  all  life  lived  in  the  light  and  use  of  truth 
is  sacramental. 


INDEX 


INDEX 


Abraham,  87. 

Achilles,  congenial  to  our  ex- 
perience, 196. 

Agitator,  the,  one  conscious  of 
"  the  difference,"  119  ;  and 
the  reformer,  119. 

Agnostic,  the,  his  fight  against 
dogma,  125,  126. 

Ahriman,  50. 

Allen,  A.  V.  G.,  his  Continuity 
of  Christian  Thought  quoted, 
32,  33,  39 ;  cited,  301 ;  his 
Christian  Institutions  cited, 
173  ;  quoted,  175. 

Alline,  Henry,  the  case  of  the 
conversion  of,  200,  212. 

Alsace,  peasants  slain  in,  100. 

America,  new  era  of  theological 
development  in,  11-15;  dis- 
covery of,  83  ;  provides  op- 
portunity for  the  poor  man, 
103. 

Amos,  the  prophet,  voiced  the 
social  problem,  101. 

Amusements,  60. 

Anabaptists  as  a  fruit  of  the 
Reformation,  85. 

Anarchist,  his  notion  of  author- 
ity, 85. 

Anarchy,  sporadic,  one  of  the 
prices  we  pay  for  epidemic 
freedom,  182. 

Anthropology,  19. 

Anthropomorphic  conception  of 
the  deity,  132. 

Apocrypha,  the,  has  few  refer- 
ences to  the  Spirit,  149. 

Apostles'  Creed,  clause  relating 


to  the  resurrection  of  the 
body,  239,  240;  clause  "con- 
ceived by  the  Holy  Ghost," 
285. 

Apostolic  succession,  173. 

Argument  from  design,  its  treat- 
ment by  evolution,  41,  42. 

Aristocrat,  his  notion  of  author- 
ity, 86. 

Aristodemus  confuted  by  Soc- 
rates, 1. 

Arminian  liturgy  of  the  Church 
of  England,  239. 

Arnold,  Matthew,  cited  on  con- 
duct, 72  ;  quoted,  235,  253. 

Article  IX.  of  the  XXXIX.  Ar- 
ticles, 59. 

Aryan  religions,  elements  of,  in 
Christianity,  90. 

Asceticism,  169,  302. 

Ashley,  Lord.  See  Shaftesbury, 
Lord. 

Assertion,  dogmatism  of,  20. 

Astronomy,  19. 

"  Atherton,"  in  Hours  with  the 
Mystics,  quoted,  176. 

Atonement,  the,  14,  265  ;  larger 
meaning  of,  274-277. 

Augustine,  his  derivation  of 
word  religion,  271. 

Authority,  its  place  in  the 
Church,  82,  83  ;  its  place  in 
the  Reformation,  83,  84,  101  ; 
change  passing  upon  the  no- 
tion of,  85,  86 ;  effect  of 
French  Revolution  on  govern- 
mental, 85,  101 ;  ultimate 
source  of,  286,  314-319. 


330 


INDEX 


Autun,   besieged    by    the  Ba- 

gauds,  96. 
Averroes,  mentioned,  183. 

Bacon,  Francis,  mentioned,  127. 

Bacracz,  Cardinal,  and  the  Ku- 
rucks'  uprising,  98. 

Bagauds,  uprising  of,  96. 

Baptism  for  service,  209. 

Baptists,  244. 

Baur,  F.  C,  his  book  sealed  to 
many  English  readers,  11. 

Berkeley,  Bishop,  304. 

Bible,  the  divine  and  human 
element  in,  52,  53  ;  infallibil- 
ity of,  53,  279-282  ;  traditions 
of,  questioned,  88,  284;  au- 
thority in  the,  316.  See  Scrip- 
tures. 

Biblical  criticism,  Bushnell 
and,  14 ;  a  cause  of  doubt  in 
religion,  87. 

"  Big  Man  "  of  the  Fuegians, 
132,  134. 

Bildad,  27. 

Birrell,  Augustine,  his  essays, 
186;  cited,  189. 

Black  death,  the,  176,  177. 

Bludso,  Jim,  306. 

Book,  the,  made  the  head  of  a 

.    system,  83. 

Bosanquet,  Mrs.  Bernard,  The 
Standard  of  Life  cited,  104, 
111. 

Bossuet,  questions  Leibnitz  on 
the  variableness  of  the  Pro- 
testant churches,  33. 

Boswell,  James,  on  the  Presby- 
terians, 47 ;  his  life  of  John- 
son quoted,  47. 

Brain,  secretes  thought  as  the 
liver  secretes  bile,  29. 

Bridgewater  Treatises,  42. 

Brierly,  J.,  quoted,  188. 

Brown,  T.  E.,  quoted,  301. 

Browning,  Robert,  his  comment 
on  the  prologue  of  Genesis, 
24 ;  his  The  Ring  and  the  Book 


quoted,  24,  71 ;  and  Goethe, 
compared,  24,  25. 

Bundschuh  insurrection,  98. 

Bunyan,  John,  mystic,  178  ; 
mentioned,  190;  epic  quality 
of  his  Grace  Abounding,  196. 

Burgou,  mentioned,  238. 

Burke,  Edmund,  quoted  on  the 
age,  309. 

Bushnell,  Horace,  his  place  in 
the  new  era  of  theological 
development,  13-15  ;  his  Life 
by  T.  T.  Munger  quoted,  14, 
15 ;  quoted,  67. 

Butler,  Samuel,  mentioned,  42. 

Buxton,  Fowell,  mentioned,  115. 

Byron,  Lord,  235. 

Cade,    Jack,    his    insurrection, 

97. 
Calvin,  93,  280. 
Calvinism,     48 ;    its     influence 

on       American      theological 

thought,  11,  12 ;  rationalism 

of,  246. 
Calvinistic  articles  of  the  Church 

of  England,  239. 
Carlyle,  Thomas,  Sartor  Resar- 

tus  quoted,  4 ;  and  Kant,  9 ; 

his  conversion,  308. 
Carton,  Sydney,  305. 
Catholicism,  real  issue  between 

Montanism  and,  175,  176. 
Cause,   a   transcendent,   man  a 

believer  in,  132. 
Cause  -  and  -  effect    habit    of 

thought,  15. 
Causes,  man  a  natural  believer 

in  resident,  131,  132. 
Chaucer,  mentioned,  102. 
Child  labor,  reformation  of,  in 

the  last  century,  111. 
Chinese,  superstition  of  the,  132. 
Christ  Jesus,  the  partial  nature 

of  His  work,  142 ;  His  life  was 

future-regarding,     142,    144 ; 

expediency  of  His  departure, 

144,  145,  225  ;  His  references 


INDEX 


331 


to  the  Holy  Spirit,  145,229; 
His  difficulty  in  interpreting 
the  Word  to  His  followers, 
152 ;  development  theory 
found  in  His  teachings,  217 ; 
taught  the  presence  of  the 
Spirit,  217,  232  ;  saving  power 
of,  230;  His  idea  of  conversion, 
231  ;  atonement  through,  265  ; 
infancy  and  virgin  birth  of, 
284. 
Christian,  the  modern,  is  a  dual- 
ist in  philosophy,  50 ;  finds 
antinomy  between  nature 
and  the  supernatural,  50-52  ; 
his  attitude  in  regard  to  the 
Bible,  52;  his  attempt  to 
frame  a  doctrine  of  God,  53  ff .; 
of  the  Kingdom  of  God,  56- 
62 ;  difficulties  presented  to 
him  in  the  church,  56-62. 
Christian  Endeavor,  Society  of, 

44. 
Christian  growth,  14. 
Christian  Scientist,  302. 
Christianity,  is   a  living  organ- 
ism, 21 ;  Romanes  on,  37,  38  ; 
practical,    of    the   time,   42  ; 
modern     organization    under, 
43-45  ;  its  struggle  with  reli- 
gious observance,  76;  elements 
of  Aryan  and  Semitic  religions 
in,  90;  and  ethnic  religions, 
91,  92;   Platonism  and,  169; 
three   degrees  in,    180 ;   pro- 
mised  freedom    and     peace, 
221  ;  interdependence  of  faith 
and  good  works  in,  226. 
Church,   the   Christian,  full   of 
youthful   vigor,    42 ;  various 
organizations  under,  in  the  last 
century,  43-45  ;   lack  of  sys- 
tem  in   theological   thinking 
among  members,  50  ;  the  dis- 
tinctions of  sects  in,  56-58 ; 
the  need  of  union  in,  58  ;  and 
the   world,   58-62;    system- 
building  in,  82,  83  ;  the  place 


given  to  authority,  82 ;  as  an 
article  of  vertu,  123  ;  slow  to 
apprehend  the  doctrine  of  the 
Holy   Spirit,    145,  146,   151 ; 
Holy  Spirit  works  througlnthe, 
160  ;  the  witness  of  the,  168- 
192 ;  asceticism  and  enthusi- 
asm   in,  169;   the    prophet's 
place  in,  169,   170 ;  and  reve- 
lation,   172,    174  ;    and    indi- 
vidual rights,   173 ;  is   under 
the    influence   of    a   resident 
Power,  192  ;  its  organizations, 
how  affected   by   the   larger 
doctrine    of    the    Spirit,   244, 
245,  278. 
Church  of  England,  its  liturgy 
and  creed,  238  ;  and  freedom 
of  thought,  288. 
Church  of  Rome,  Macaulay  on, 
1,  18  ;  built   on   system,   82, 
171. 
Church's  Sense  of  Responsibil- 
ity, article  upon,  cited,  112  n. 
Cicero,  his  idea  of  religion,  270. 
Clairvoyant,  the,  131. 
Clifford,  W.  K.,  theologian  and 

scientist,  17. 
Cobbe,  Frances  Power,  quoted, 

199  n. 
Cobbler's  banner,  the,  98. 
Colenso,  Bishop,  his  Higher  Crit- 
icism of  the  Bible,  3 ;  his  book 
disapproved      of      by      Lord 
Shaftesbury,  8. 
Coleridge,  S.  T.,  his  influence  on 
theological    thought,     4,    9 ; 
quoted,  301. 
Colossians,     Epistle    to,     cited, 

272. 
Common  sense,  319. 
Comte,  Auguste,  mentioned,  19, 

23,  93. 
Conduct,  the  office  of  religion  to 
regulate,  73  ;  how  affected  by 
religious  doubt,  73  ;  its  rela- 
tion to  faith,  74,  75,  78,  92  ; 
its  degeneration  into   observ- 


332 


INDEX 


ance,  74 ;  regulation  must 
come  from  within,  78  ;  refer- 
ence to  underlying1  doctrine, 
80. 

Congregationalist  and  Christian 
World  cited,  112  n. 

Congregationalists,  244. 

Conolly,  John,  banished  the 
strait  waistcoat,  114. 

Conscience,  its  influence  on  the 
social  problem,  101. 

Conscience  of  Christendom,  arti- 
cle upon  cited,  112  n. 

Consecration  of  Christian  life, 
209. 

Conservation  of  energy,  the  law 
of,  is  an  expression  in  phy- 
sical terms  of  the  omnipre- 
sence of  God,  299. 

Constitutions,  periodic  amend- 
ment of,  168,  169. 

Continuity,  its  principle  becom- 
ing to  Theism,  40. 

Continuity  of  nature,  126. 

Conversion,  religious,  60,  308 ; 
scientific  attempts  to  investi- 
gate it,  193,  200,  207;  is  a  nor- 
mal experience,  198 ;  excite- 
ment of,  199  ;  reality  of,  199  ; 
typical  instances  of,  200  ff., 
214 ;  immanent  Power  recog- 
nized in,  208,  215  ;  character 
of  the  experience,  212,  213  ; 
accords  with  doctrine  of  evolu- 
tion, 214. 

Conviction   of  sin,  265,  268,  270. 

Copperfield,  David,  313. 

Corinthians,  1st  Epistle  to  the, 
cited,  164  n. 

Corn  laws  in  England,  103. 

Cosmic  Force,  134  ;  evolutionary 
theory  based  on  the  existence 
of  a,  140. 

Counter  -  Reformation,  181  ; 
wrought  two  results,  183. 

Crauford,  A.  H.,  his  Enigmas 
of  the  Spiritual  Life  cited, 
303. 


Creation,  Assyrian  tradition  of, 

91. 
Creed  of  the  Church  of  England, 

239. 
Creeds,  239-243 ;    elasticity  of, 

239;   those   that  express  ex- 

perience  will  abide,  244,  274. 
Criminal,  the,  work  done  in  the 

last  century  for,  114. 
Crofton,  Sir  Walter,  mentioned, 

116. 
Cure  of  souls,  197. 
Custom  finds  worshipers  among 

theologians,  34. 

Dale,  R.  W.,  case  of  the  friend 
of,  206,  214. 

Darwin,  Charles,  his  Origin  of 
Species  and  Descent  of  Man 
mentioned,  135. 

Darwin,  Erasmus,  17. 

Dawkins,  Boyd,  letter  of  J.  R. 
Green  to,  288. 

Dead  hand,  the  impotence  of 
the,  124. 

Death  penalty,  change  of  senti- 
ment in  regard  to,  116. 

Deed,  the,  its  place  in  the 
thought  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  23,  24 ;  emphasized 
by  the  church,  45. 

Definitions  mark  stages  in  a  pro- 
cess of  development,  .259. 

Deism,  41,  53  ;  rationalism  of, 
246. 

Deluge,  Assyrian  tradition  of, 
91. 

Dependent  Classes,  Upon  the 
Lot  of  the,  article  cited,  112  n.; 
work  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury for,  114. 

Destiny,  fulfillment  of,  264, 
265. 

Development,  Doctrine  of,  its 
apostles'  attitude  toward  the 
theologians,  34  ;  feature  of 
purposefulness  in,  139.  See 
also  Evolution,  Doctrine  of. 


INDEX 


333 


Devil,  theory  that  the  earth  be- 
longs to  the,  59. 

Dickens,  Charles,  Thackeray  on, 
312. 

Divine  Spirit.  See  Holy  Spirit, 
Spirit. 

Dobson,  Austin,  his  Prayer  of 
the  Swine  to  Circe  quoted,  68. 

Doctrine,  relation  of  conduct  to, 
80  ;  built  on  system,  82. 

Dogma,  theology  bound  by,  31  ; 
attacked  by  the  agnostic,  126 ; 
as  a  servant,  126. 

Dorner,  his  definition  of  person- 
ality, 264. 

Dosza,  Transylvanian  leader, 
98. 

Doubt,  religious,  its  effect  upon 
conduct,  73;  factitious,  81; 
Biblical  criticism  a  cause  of, 
87-90  ;  study  of  comparative 
religion  a  cause  of,  90 ;  mis- 
apprehension of  personality 
closely  related  to,  93. 

Dualistic  philosophy,  50  ff.,  122. 

Dunant,  J.  H.,  Red  Cross  Move- 
ment due  to  experiences  of, 
117. 

Drummond,  Henry,  191;  source 
of  his  popularity,  293. 

Dutch,  uprising  of  the,  99  ;  the 
number  slain,  100. 

Dyke,  Henry  van,  his  term 
"  cureless  melancholy  of  dis- 
illusion," 68. 

Eagle  compared  with  Christian 
freedom,  222. 

Ecee  Homo,  disapproval  of,  by 
Lord  Shaftesbury,  8. 

Eckhart,  178,  183. 

Eden,  Sir  Frederick,  his  State  of 
the  Poor  cited,  102, 110  ;  men- 
tioned, 113. 

Edersheim.  his  Life  and  Times 
of  Jesus  the  Messiah  cited,  149. 

Edwards,  Jonathan,  mentioned, 
12. 


Eliphaz,  27. 

Empiric,  the,  exalted  in  last  two 
generations,  86. 

England,  new  era  of  theological 
development  in,  9-1 1 ;  opposi- 
tion to  German  thought,  10. 

Enthusiasm  in  the  Christian 
Church,  169. 

Ephesians,  Epistle  to  the,  cited, 
165,  272. 

Episcopalians,  244. 

Erasmus  quoted  on  the  rise  of 
the  Dutch,  99. 

Erskine,  Thomas,  influence  of, 
in  theological  thought,  4 ; 
his  Kingdom  of  Christ  men- 
tioned, 4. 

Ethnic  religions,  importance  at- 
tached to,  260. 

Ethnic  trinities,  91. 

Evangelical,  not  bound  by  tradi- 
tion, 2. 

Evangelical  preaching,  78,  79. 

Evangelical  Revival,  its  force 
spent,  9. 

Everett,  C.  C,  his  Immortality 
and  other  Essays  cited,  208, 
219. 

Evil,  problem  of,  267  ;  present 
in  all  ages,  27. 

Evolution,  Spencerian  definition 
of,  cited,  216. 

Evolution,  Doctrine  of,  14 ; 
growth  of  its  acceptance 
through  its  theological  signi- 
ficance, 17  ;  its  first  effect  on 
theological  systems,  28-30, 
135 ;  attitude  of  Protestant 
theologians  toward,  32 ;  its 
method  an  aid  to  theology, 
40-42;  and  doctrine  of  final 
causes,  41,  136;  substantiates 
theology,  41 ;  gives  us  a  larger 
teleology,  42,  140 ;  demands  a 
unification  of  knowledge,  134; 
its  method  is  universal,  135  ; 
its  attitude  toward  the  future, 
137  ;  holds  process  of  develop- 


334 


INDEX 


ment  to  be  purposeful,  139 ; 
reasonableness  of,  139,  140  ; 
based  on  tbe  existence  of  a 
cosmic  force,  140  ;  provides  us 
with  a  principle  essentially 
religious,  140;  and  religious 
conversion,  214 ;  found  in 
Christ's  teachings,  217. 

Exodus,  Book  of,  cited,  147. 

Experience,  258,  298;  God  as 
an,  262, 263  ;  the  power  of  the 
Church  lay  in  spiritual,  184, 
185. 

Ezekiel,  vision  of,  240,  271. 

Fairbairn,  A.  M.,  his  Christ  in 
the  Centuries  cited,  77  ;  his  Re- 
ligion in  History  and  Modern 
Life,  and  Influence  of  the  Intel- 
lectual Movement,  cited,  104 ; 
his  The  Place  of  Christ  in 
Modern  Theology  cited,  26, 196; 
quoted,  224  ;  his  use  of  word 
Socinian,  259. 

Faith,  the  new  freedom  of,  221- 
254  ;  interdependence  of  good 
works  and,  226  ;  a  saving,  229. 

Faith,  Christian,  its  relation  to 
conduct,  74,  75,  78,  92;  not 
content  with  observance,  74. 

Fall,  the,  14. 

Fanaticism,  how  a  fruit  of  the 
Reformation,  84,  85. 

Father  of  the  Gods,  134. 

Fathers,  Pilgrim,  ultra-Calvin- 
ism of,  11. 

Faust,  his  translation  of  St. 
John's  Gospel,  22. 

F^nelon,  178. 

Fiction,  theological  topics  in  re- 
cent, 62-67  ;  use  of,  in  theo- 
logical discussion,  63. 

Final  causes,  doctrine  of,  treat- 
ment of,  by  evolution,  41. 

First  cause,  133. 

Fisher,  G.  P.,  address  of,  cited, 
40  ;  his  History  of  the  Chris- 
tian Church,  234. 


Fiske,  John,  27 ;  a  theologian 
as  well  as  scientist,  18,  35 ; 
his  Cosmic  Philosophy  men- 
tioned, 18. 

Flaccus,  letter  to,  179. 

Flagellants,  177. 

Force  is  the  presence  of  God, 
229. 

Force,  ultimate,  28. 

Formality  in  religion,  74,  75. 

Fox,  George,  mysticism  of,  178. 

Franconia,  peasants  slain  in,  99. 

Frederic,  Harold,  his  Theron 
Ware  cited,  6. 

Freedom,  promised  by  Christian- 
ity, 221  ;  as  taught  by  the 
Apostle  Paul,  223,  224. 

French  constitution,  the,  as  pe- 
riodical literature,  168. 

French  Revolution,  effect  of,  on 
governmental  authority,  85  ; 
the  poor  found  a  voice  with 
the,  100,  101. 

Fritz,  Joss,  98. 

Froissart,  as  chronicler  of  the 
Jacquerie,  97. 

Froude,  Hurrell,  his  work,  190. 

Froude,  J.  A.,  9. 

Future,  the  place  given  it  by 
evolution,  137,  138. 

Genesis,  Book  of,  53 ;  Brown- 
ing's comment  on  the  prologue 
of,  24. 

German  influence  on  theological 
thought,  3,  4,  9,  11. 

Germany,  traits  in,  that  are  born 
of  the  Reformation,  182,  183. 

Gillen.  See  Spencer  and  Gil- 
len. 

Gnostic,  the,  upheld  continuity 
of  revelation,  174.    ' 

God,  as  the  Ultimate  Cause,  134  ; 
Spirit  of,  147, 229 ;  Holy  Spirit 
an  expression  of  His  imma- 
nence, 165,  227-229;  as  an  ex- 
perience, 181, 262 ;  as  a  person, 
229,  231,  300 ;   attempt  to  de- 


INDEX 


335 


fine,  260-264  ;  revelation  of, 
as  Spirit,  266. 

Godet,  F.,  his  Gospel  of  John 
cited,  159. 

Goethe,  mentioned,  135 ;  his 
Faust  quoted,  22,  23,  25 ;  his 
forecast  of  the  philosophical 
temper  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury, 23,  24,  135  ;  and  Brown- 
ing- compared,  24,  25. 

Good  works,  interdependence  of 
faith  and,  226. 

Goodness,  all,  springs  from  one 
source,  301. 

Gore,  Bishop,  35. 

Gosman.  Alexander,  address  of, 
cited,  40  n. 

Governments,  experience  strug- 
gle between  system  and  spirit, 
168. 

Graham,  Sir  James,  255. 

Gravitation,  law  of.  50 ;  is  God's 
revelation  of  His  presence  to 
a  stone,  229. 

Gray,  Bishop,  his  criticism  of 
Colenso,  8. 

Green,  John  Richard,  his  Short 
History  of  the  English  People 
cited,  102 ;  letter  to  Boyd 
Dawkins,  288. 

Greene,  G.  A.,  quoted,  68. 

Guyon,  Madame,  178. 

Gwatkin  cited,  170. 

Hamilton,  William,  quoted,  36. 
Hardy,  Thomas,  more  preacher 

than  novelist,  63,  64  ;  his  Tess 

of  the  D'  Urbervilles  cited,  64  ; 

Jude  the  Obscure  cited,  64  ;  his 

treatment  of  fate  and  passion, 

64,  65 ;  his  God,  65. 
Harte,  Bret,  306. 
Hastings,  James,  his  Dictionary 

of  the  Bible  cited,  146,  148, 

165,  170. 
Hay,  John,  his  Jim  Bludso,  306. 
Headlam,  cited,  161,  162. 
Hebrew  Scriptures,  all  energy 


referred  to  a  divine  source  in, 
148. 

Hegel,  156  ;  influence  of,  in  new 
era  of  theological  thought,  10 ; 
anecdote  of  Comte  and,  10; 
reception  of  his  philosophy  in 
England  and  Germany,  10,  11 ; 
and  Strauss,  10,  11 ;  his  philo- 
sophy of  the  Trinity,  197. 

Hegelianism  has  lost  its  damning 
power,  156. 

Henley,  W.  E.,  quoted,  69. 

Historic  method  adopted  in  the- 
ology, 40. 

History,  the  Spirit  in,  159  n. 

Hodder,  Edwin,  his  Life  and 
Work  of  the  Earl  of  Shaftes- 
bury quoted,  8,  9. 

Holy  Ghost,  the  modern  sin 
against  the,  250. 

Holy  Spirit,  Christ's  references 
to,  145  ;  His  work  in  the  world, 
145,  157-159,  166;  anticipa- 
tion of,  in  the  Old  Testament, 
146-151 ;  meaning  and  use  of 
the  Hebrew  word,  146,  147; 
lack  of  mention  of,  in  the 
Apocrypha,  149 ;  presentation 
of,  in  the  New  Testament, 
151  -  165  ;  character  of  His 
influence  and  guidance,  153- 
159  ;  works  through  men,  160 ; 
always  an  expression  of  divine 
immanence,  165,  227-229  ; 
personality  of,  23 1 .  See  Spirit. 

Holy  Spirit,  doctrine  ofthe,  141, 
145  ;  Christian  Church  slow  to 
apprehend,  145, 146,  151 ;  sur- 
vival of,  among  the  Alexan- 
drian Jews,  150;  Johannine 
treatment  of,  155,  156-1 59, 
161 ;  Pauline,  161 ;  as  the  doc- 
trine of  God's  immanence, 
227  ff.  See  Spirit,  the  larger 
doctrine  of  the. 

Homer,  the  hidings  of  his  power 
196. 

Homily,  weakness  of,  79,  80. 


336 


INDEX 


Hosea,  Book  of,  cited,  75. 
Human  spirit,  the  Iliad  and  the 

Odyssey  of  the,  196,  198. 
Huxley,  T.  H.,  theologian  and 

scientist,  17;  mentioned,  238, 

304. 

Idea  of  Divinity,  28. 

Iliad,  the,  of  the  human  spirit, 
196,  198. 

Imprisonment  for  deht,  abolition 
of,  115. 

Incarnation,  doctrine  of  the,  91, 
284-286. 

Independents  occupied  with  doc- 
trinal controversy,  4. 

"  Index  Expurgatorius,"  183. 

Individual,  the  life  of  the, 
guarded  by  modern  society, 
116,  117;  advance  of,  during 
the  last  century,  118;  rights 
of,  upheld  by  the  Montanist, 
173;  in  religious  conversion, 
207,  208. 

Individual  experience,  witness 
of,  193-220. 

Infancy,  prolongation  of,  impor- 
tance of,  in  evolution  of  man, 
137, 138. 

Inge,  his  Christian  Mysticism 
cited,  27,  169,  181,  184,  262 ; 
quoted,  52. 

Inquisition,  the,  183,  184. 

Insane,  the,  work  done  in  the 
last  century  for,  114. 

Inspiration,  doctrine  of,  84, 
279  ff. 

Inspiration  of  the  Bible,  279- 
311. 

Institutionalism,  conflict  be- 
tween science  and,  15. 

Intuition,  179. 

Isaiah-prophecies,  53 ;  quoted, 
75  ;  authorship,  88. 

Jacob,  146  ;  wrestling  with  the 

angel,  215. 
Jacquerie,  outbreak  of  the,  97. 


James,  William,  his  Varieties  of 
Religious  Experience,  194  f. ; 
case  cited  by,  200 ;  on  prayer, 
207 ;  his  review  of  Spencer's 
Autobiography,  216. 

Jefferson,  C.  E.,  address  cited, 
44  n. 

Jesuits,  rise  of  the,  183. 

Job,  Book  of,  cited,  147. 

Johannine  treatment  of  the  doc- 
trine of  the  Holy  Spirit,  155, 
156-159;  compared  with  the 
Pauline,  161. 

John,  Gospel  of,  cited,  155; 
quoted,  180. 

Johnson,  Samuel,  on  the  Pres- 
byterians, 47. 

Johnson's  Universal  Encyclo- 
pedia cited,  50. 

Jonah,  Book  of,  53. 

Jonah,  experience  of,  88,  89. 

Joss  Fritz,  98. 

Jowett,  Benjamin,  his  theology 
disapproved  of  by  Lord 
Shaftesbury,  8. 

Judaism,  formalism  and  real 
religion  in,  74-76 ;  Sabbath 
of,  76  ;  laws  of,  76. 

Jude  the  Obscure,  theological  as- 
pect of,  64. 

Kant,  Immanuel,  9, 17, 103, 135. 
Keats,  John,  quoted,  253. 
Keble,  John,  mentioned,  187. 
Kidd,  Benjamin,  mentioned,  138. 
Kim,  Kipling's,  106. 
Knowledge,  said  to  have  three 

degrees,  179. 
Kurucks  of  Hungary,  uprising 

of,  98. 

Labor  organization,  104 :  pro- 
gress of,  in  the  last  century, 
112. 

Laborer's  family  in  New  Eng- 
land, story  of,  112. 

Langland,  William,  his  Piers 
Ploughman  cited,  102. 


INDEX 


337 


Last  Athenian,  theological  as- 
pect of,  63. 

Law,  28 ;  of  the  scribes  and  of 
Christ,  76,  77. 

Laws,  natural,  supposed  to  be 
opposed  to  divine,  50  ff . 

Lecky,  W.  E.  H.,  quoted,  67, 
234. 

Lectures,  courses  founded  on 
antiquated  views,  124. 

Leibnitz,  on  the  eternally  vari- 
able church,  33. 

Leon,  Louis  de,  184. 

Lewes,  Mrs.,  her  translation  of 
Strauss's  "  Leben  Jesu,"  30. 

Life  Saving  Service,  117. 

Logos,  152. 

Lorraine,  Duke  of,  mentioned, 
100. 

Lowell,  J.  R.,  quoted  on  Ste- 
phen's English  Thought  in  the 
Eighteenth  Century,  290. 

Luther,  Martin,  mentioned,  99, 
100,  184,  280;  his  interpre- 
tation of  the  Epistle  to  the 
Romans,  181. 

Lying  Prophets,  theological  as- 
pect of,  65  ;  quoted,  65,  66. 

Macaulay,  T.  B.,  his  essay  on 
Von  Ranke's  History  of  the 
Popes,  1,  4  ;  quoted,  2 ;  on 
theology  not  a  progressive 
science,  1,  2,  6,  15,   18. 

Maconochie,  Alexander,  men- 
tioned, 116. 

Malachi,  Book  of,  cited,  75. 

Man,  superstition  of,  18,  133 ; 
the  one  unsatisfied  creature, 
118  ;  a  natural  believer  in 
resident  causes,  132  ;  believes 
in  a  transcendent  Cause,  132. 

Marconi  instrument  mentioned, 
212. 

Martineau,  James,  quoted,  237, 
304. 

Materialism,  302. 

Matheson,    George,   his    Spirit- 


ual Development  of  St.  Paul, 
164. 

Maurice,  F.  D.,  his  influence  in 
new  era  of  thought,  4. 

Maurice,  the  elder,  3. 

Maximian.  Emperor,  96. 

Mazzini,  G.,  quoted,  277. 

McGiffert,  A.  C,  his  Apostolic 
Age  cited,  162. 

Medicine,  19. 

Medium,  so-called  spirit,  131. 

Method,  28. 

Methodist  preaching,  mentioned, 
78. 

Mill,  James,  his  misrepresenta- 
tion of  religion,  3. 

Miracle,  14,  28,  52,  283,  298. 

Missionary  work,  growth  of,  in 
the  last  century,  44  ;  the  mis- 
sionary a  sign  of  society's 
solidarity,  118. 

Missions,  Catholic,  speak  of  a 
Power  resident  among  men, 
191. 

Modern  Christian  thought.  See 
Christian,  the  modern. 

Molinos,  178. 

Montanist,  the,  172,  173;  real 
issue  between  the  Catholic 
and,  176. 

Montanus,  175. 

Moody,  D.  L.,  mentioned,  191. 

More,  Sir  Thomas,  1. 

Morley,  John,  his  Life  of  W. 
E.  Gladstone  cited,  255. 

Moses,  mentioned,  146,  166; 
voiced  the  social  problem  to 
Pharaoh,  101. 
Mysticism,  Christian,  75 ;  the 
office  of,  176  ;  lack  of,  in  Bri- 
tain, 176,  177  ;  grotesqueness 
of,  exaggerated,  178 ;  sense  of 
immediateness  in,  181;  "ex- 
perience of  God  "  in,  181. 

Nash,  H.  S.,  his  Genesis  of  the 
Social  Conscience  quoted, 
109. 


338 


INDEX 


Natural,  the,  and  the  supernat- 
ural, 50-52,  292,  297. 

Natural  g-oodness,  305, 

Natural  selection,  growth  of 
its  acceptance  through  its 
theological  significance,  17  ; 
seemed  to  demand  a  selfish 
life,  136  ;  to  make  life  a  thing 
of  the  present,  136. 

Nature,  14;  seeming  antinomy 
between  the  supernatural  and, 
51 ;  force  manifested  in,  is 
rational,  127  ;  investigator 
in,  who  is  inspired  by  faith, 
127. 

Negation,  dogmatism  of,  20. 

New  meaning  of  some  old  words, 
255-287. 

Newman,  Cardinal,  39,  186, 
187  ;  quoted,  63,  233 ;  his 
vogue,  189  f. 

Newton,  Sir  Isaac,  spiritual 
significance  of  his  discovery, 
295. 

Nicene  theology  criticised,  224. 

Nietzsche,  Friedrich,  39. 

Nonconformist,  the,  an  anti- 
quarian, 3. 

Non-resident  causes,  aversion  to 
the  belief  in,  131. 

Novel,  the  theologian  as  lay  fig- 
ure in  the,  6  ;  the  theological, 
considered,  62-67. 

Numbers,  Book  of,  cited,  147. 

Observance,  and  conduct,  74, 
76 ;  faith  not  content  with, 
74. 

Odysseus  congenial  to  our  ex- 
perience, 196. 

Odyssey,  the,  of  the  human 
spirit,  196,  198,  206. 

OSdipus  quoted,  36. 

Old  Testament,  anticipation  of 
the  Holy  Spirit  in,  146-151. 

Opportunist,  exalted  in  the  last 
two  generations,  86. 

Ordo  ordinatus,  13. 


Ormuzd,  50. 

Oxford  Movement,  the  so-called, 
188-191. 

Paley,  William,  argument  from 
design,  1 ;  treatment  which 
his  argument  received  from 
evolution,  41  ;  his  maxim, 
255. 

Pantheism,  53,  300. 

irapa.K\7]TOS,  145. 

Parliamentary  Reform,  103. 

Paul,  Apostle,  314  ;  quoted,  63 ; 
his  treatment  of  the  doctrine 
of  the  Holy  Spirit,  161-165  ; 
on  prophets,  169  f.  ;  his  doc- 
trine of  freedom,  223 ;  and 
Apollos,  249. 

Peabody,  F.  G.,  his  Jesus  Christ 
and  the  Social  Question 
quoted,  107. 

Peace,  promised  by  Christianity, 
221 ;  given  through  truth,  222, 
253. 

Peasants,  early  uprisings  of,  96- 
99 ;  the  numbers  slain,  99, 
100. 

Peasants'  Revolt  of  1524,  the 
slain  in,  100. 

Pedagogy  the  toy  of  an  empiri- 
cal psychology,  85. 

Peel,  Sir  Robert,  legislation  of, 
111. 

Penal  codes,  revision  of,  117. 

Pentecost,  162. 

Persecution,  183. 

Person,  God  as  a,  229,  231. 

Personality,  worth  of,  set  aside 
for  mechanical  contrivance, 
93 ;  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  231. 

Peter,  Apostle,  cited,  164. 

Pharaoh,  mentioned,  101,  146. 

Philo,  150,  157. 

Philosophical  systems  must  con- 
tinue to  be  partial,  93,  130. 

Philosophies,  all  pass  through 
struggle  between  system  and 
spirit,  168. 


INDEX 


339 


Philpotts,  Eden,  the  theological 
aspect  of  his  novels,  65  ;  his 
Lying  Prophets  quoted,  65, 
66. 

Physical,  the,  and  the  spiritual, 
301-305. 

Platonism,  parallel  between  his- 
tory of  Christianity  and  his- 
tory of,  169. 

Plimsoll,  Samuel,  legislation 
advocated  by,  117. 

Plotinus,  mentioned,  27,  169  ; 
cited,  179. 

Poe,  E.  A.,  his  Pit  and  Pendu- 
lum mentioned,  19. 

Poetry,  recent,  theological  topics 
in,  67-71 ;  expression  of  un- 
rest in,  68-70,  233  ;  longing 
for  the  future  in  religious,  234. 

Poor,  the,  pathos  of  their  lot, 
96  ;  early  uprisings  of,  96-99  ; 
found  a  voice  with  the  French 
Revolution,  100-103  ;  Moses 
and  Amos  on,  101  ;  in  the 
time  of  Chaucer,  102. 

Poor  man,  the,  his  political 
rights  are  won,  104  ;  is  search- 
ing for  economic  privileges, 
104;  the  last  century  gener- 
ous to,  108-114 ;  his  chance 
of  livelihood  considered,  110- 
114. 

"  Poor  Man's  Chance  of  Liveli- 
hood, Upon  the,"  article  cited, 
112  n. 

Pope,  the  head  of  a  system,  83. 

Porter,  F.  C,  cited,  149. 

Power,  its  place  in  the  thought 
of  the  nineteenth  century,  23, 
24  ;  exists,  45 ;  search  for  some 
other  than  the  influence  of 
Jesus  Christ,  61  ;  as  a  new 
object  of  allegiance,  94  ;  must 
be  factor  in  the  answer  to  the 
social  question,  120 ;  evolu- 
tionary theory  based  on  the 
existence  of  a,  140  ;  attributes 
of,  140  ;  is  personal,  140,  218  ; 


religious  revivals  speak  of  a, 
191 ;  the  Christian  Church  is 
under   the  influence  of,   192  ; 
recognized   in   phenomena  of 
conversion,  208  f.,  215;  which 
moves  in  evolution,  is  identi- 
cal with  that  which  makes  for 
righteousness  in  man,  218. 
Preaching,     ethical,    compared 
with  spiritual,  78-80  ;  revival 
of,  in  the  nineteenth  century, 
79,  80  ;  weakness  of,  79,  80. 
Presbyterians,    244 ;      occupied 
with  doctrinal  controversy,  4. 
Present,  Christian  man  at  home 
in   the,    233-237 ;    agnostic's 
view  of,  234,  235. 
Priest,  the,  his  conflict  with  sci- 
ence, 15,  16. 
Pringle-Pattison,    A.  S.,    cited, 

120. 
Private  judgment,  right  of,  84, 

182. 
Professor,  who  read  nothing  of  a 

decade's  standing,  86. 
Prophet,  especially  imbued  with 
the  Spirit  of  God,  147  ;  the,  in 
early  church,  169. 
Protestant  Church,  variableness 

of,  33. 
Protestant  theologians,  their  at- 
titude toward  the  doctrine  of 
evolution,   32,   33 ;  power   of 
adaptation  of,  33. 
Psalms  of  David  as  sung  in  New 

England  village,  57. 
Psychologist,  his  study  of  reli- 
gious phenomena,  193-195, 
200. 
Pusey,  E.B.,  Lord  Shaftesbury's 
letter  to,  quoted,  8 ;  his  oppo- 
sition to  German  theological 
thought,  11. 

Quacks,  political  and  economic. 
105,  108. 

Quakers,  as  a  fruit  of  the  Re- 
formation, 85. 


340 


INDEX 


Radium,  299. 

Raikes,  Robert,  his  organization 
of  the  Sunday-school,  43. 

Rational,  spiritual  as,  52  ;  Crea- 
tive Force  is,  264. 

Rationalism,  and  Christianity, 
246  ;  German,  247  ;  the  meth- 
ods of,  247-249. 

Reason,  human,  is  the  chief 
agent  of  the  divine  Spirit  in 
man,  246,  249. 

Rebellion,  the,  mentioned,  205. 

Red  Cross  movement,  117. 

Reformation,  the,  and  the  Re- 
naissance compared,  25,  26 ; 
its  attitude  toward  authority, 
83,  84  ;  principles  of,  but  yet 
dimly  discerned,  84  ;  fanati- 
cism how  a  fruit  of,  85 ;  and 
the  Counter-Reformation,  181; 
its  connection  with  the  doc- 
trine of  the  Spirit,  182;  its 
assertion  of  freedom,  182. 

Regeneration,  60. 

Reign  of  Terror,  the  slain  in, 
100. 

Religion,  facts  of,  have  a  claim 
upon  men,  39 ;  the,  of  the 
people,  72-95 ;  confusion  of 
thought  in,  73,  81  ;  its  office 
the  regulation  of  conduct,  73, 
77;  doubt  in,  73,  82,  87; 
faith  in,  74, 78  ;  observance  in, 
74,  76  ;  formality  and  mysti- 
cism in,  74,  75  ;  made  real  in 
the  Hebrew  prophets,  75  ; 
Pharisaic  and  Christian,  76, 
77 ;  significance  of  the  word, 
77,  270 ;  as  moribund,  122  ; 
system-building  in,  82,  83  ; 
Biblical  criticism  a  source  of 
doubt  in,  87-90 ;  study  of  com- 
parative religion  a  source  of 
doubt  in,  90 ;  secret  of,  lies  in 
a  principle  of  life,  131  ;  prin- 
ciple of,  must  be  rational  and 
with  an  outlook  upon  the  fu- 
ture, 131 ;  evolution  gives  us  a 


principle  essentially  religious, 
140 ;  experience  of,  in  conver- 
sion, 198  ;  interdependence  of 
righteousness  and,  226  ;  de- 
finition of,  272 ;  natural  and 
revealed,  296. 

Religion,  study  of  comparative, 
90.  _ 

Religions,  all  feel  struggle 
between  system  and  spirit, 
168. 

Religious  conviction,  persistence 
of,  89. 

Religious  experience,  Professor 
James  on,  194  ;  the  abnormal 
in,  195. 

Religious  melancholy,  229. 

Religious  Significance  of  Recent 
English  Verse,  essay  on,  cited, 
71  n. 

Renaissance,  the,  and  the  Re- 
formation compared,  25,  26. 

Resident  causes,  man  a  natural 
believer  in,  131-133. 

Resurrection  of  the  body,  240- 
242. 

Revelation,  2,  28 ;  case  where 
the  content  of,  was  fixed,  12 ; 
continuity  of,  upheld  by  the 
Montanist,  172,  174;  of  God 
as  spirit,  266 ;  the  new  har- 
monies of,  288-319 ;  every  dis- 
covery is  a,  295. 

Revival,  evangelical,  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  185-188. 

Revivals,  religious,  speak  of  a 
Power  resident  among  men, 
191. 

Revolution,  the,  mentioned,  205. 

Revolutions  of  1830  and  1848, 
had  their  influence  on  social 
conditions,  103. 

Robert  Elsmere,  theological  as- 
pect of,  62. 

Robinson,  John,  his  saying  that 
more  truth  might  yet  break 
out  from  the  Word  of  God, 
12,  13. 


INDEX 


341 


Romanes,  G.  J.,  his  record  of 
his  attitude  toward  religion, 
35-39;  his  Thoughts  on  Reli- 
gion quoted,  35-39  ;  his  Can- 
did Examination  of  Theism 
mentioned,  36  n. 

Romilly,  Sir  Samuel,  his  hills 
abolishing-  death  penalty  for 
certain  felonies,  116. 

Ruah,  meaning  of  the  word,  146. 

Rydberg,  Victor,  theological 
aspect  of   his  Last  Athenian, 


Sahatier,  his  Religions  of  Au- 
thority cited,  281  ;  quoted, 
316  f. 

Sabbath  of  the  Scribes  and  of 
the  Christians,  76. 

Sabellianism,  55. 

St.  Augustine,  quoted  on  un- 
rest, 69. 

St.  John,  Gospel  of,  Faust's 
translation  of,  22. 

St.  Juan  of  the  Cross,  184. 

St.  Paul's,  ruins  of,  imagined  by 
Macaulay,  1,  18. 

St.  Teresa,  178,  184. 

Salvation,  272,  273. 

Sanday,  Professor,  cited,  161, 
162. 

Schelling,  his  theory  of  the  Iliad 
and  the  Odyssey,  196. 

Schleiermacher,  9. 

Science,  seeming  conflict  be- 
tween theology  and,  15,  30- 
34,  40,  251-253,  292  ;  what  it 
owes  to  theology,  16-18 ;  in- 
vestigation in,  compared  to 
the  arc  of  a  parabola,  128  ; 
teaches  one  universal  principle 
of  being,  140. 

Scriptures,  traditions  of,  ques- 
tioned, 88  ;  inspiration  of,  91  ; 
witness  of  the,  142-167  ;  have 
nothing  to  fear  from  criti- 
cism, 309,  310 ;  message  of, 
is  the  Spirit's  message,  311. 


Second  Blessing,  the,  209. 

Seebohm,  F.,  his  The  Era  of  the 
Protestant  Revolution  cited, 
100. 

Semitic  religions,  elements  of, 
in  Christianity,  90. 

Sense  as  a  degree  of  knowledge, 
179. 

Seth,  Professor,  quoted,  181 ; 
cited,  262. 

Shaftesbury,  Lord,  his  opinion 
on  theological  development, 
7,  8  ;  Life  and  Work  of,  by  Ed- 
win Hodder,  quoted,  8,  9  ;  his 
disapproval  of  Ecce  Homo,  Co- 
lenso,  and  Jowett,  8  ;  his  letter 
to  Pusey  quoted,  8  ;  opposi- 
tion to  German  theological 
influence,  11  ;  what  he  accom- 
plished and  what  he  exem- 
plified, 108  f . ;  mentioned, 
188. 

Sharpe,  Granville,  mentioned, 
110. 

Ship,  compared  to  Christian 
freedom,  222. 

Sin,  267 ;  conviction  of,  268, 
270. 

Sin  against  the  Holy  Ghost, 
250. 

Smith,  Goldwin,  his  writings  on 
Old  Testament  topics  men- 
tioned, 6. 

Smith,  G.  A.,  his  Modern  Criti- 
cism and  the  Preaching  of  the 
Old  Testament  quoted,  149. 

Smith,  Robertson,  his  Prophets 
of  Israel  cited,  146. 

Smith,  Sydney,  his  article  on  in- 
sanity and  Mad-houses  in  the 
"  Edinburgh  "  cited,  114. 

Snyder,  Carl,  his  New  Concep- 
tions in  Science  quoted,  303  f. 

Social  problem,  the,  arising  of, 
101  ;  voiced  by  Moses,  101  ; 
its  existence  discerned  in  every 
age,  101  ;  in  the  time  of  Lang- 
land  and  Chaucer,  102  ;   can- 


342 


INDEX 


not  be  differentiated  from 
social  problems,  107,  108  ;  the 
work  of  conscience  in,  110. 
See  Poor  man,  the  ;  Society. 

Social  unrest,  96-120,  122 ;  per- 
vasiveness of  the  question  of, 
104, 105  ;  is  indefinable,  105  ; 
lies  largely  in  the  "  torment  of 
the  difference,"  119. 

Society,  is  an  organism,  not  a 
machine,  106,  120  ;  is  the  out- 
working of  an  immanent  force, 
106;  solidarity  of ,  117. 

Socrates  confuting  Aristode- 
mus,  1. 

Speech,  freedom  of,  since  the 
French  Revolution,  101. 

Spencer,  Herbert,  mentioned,  93; 
his  Principles  of  Biology  cited, 
120 ;  his  Autobiography  re- 
viewed, 216  n. 

Spencer  and  Gillen,  their  Na- 
tive Tribes  of  Australia  cited, 
132. 

Spirit,  working  of  the,  in  man, 
211,  225,  238,  249,  250 ;  sea- 
sons of  the,  236 ;  human  rea- 
son is  a  chief  agent  of,  246, 
249  ;  God  revealed  as,  266. 

Spirit  of  God,  Old  Testament 
references  to,  147  ;  is  the  dy- 
namic of  Christianity  in  the 
individual  life,  219 ;  is  one 
with  Ultimate  Force,  219, 
220,  229;  personality  of, 
231. 

Spirit,  the  larger  doctrine  of 
the,  227-229  ;  makes  man  at 
home  in  the  present,  233-237  ; 
gives  an  elasticity  to  Christian 
institutions,  237-246 ;  makes 
reason  a  chief  agent  of  the 
Divine  Spirit  in  man,  246- 
251  ;  rids  us  of  fear  of  criti- 
cism, 251-253  ;  gives  freedom 
of  faith  through  truth,  253. 

Spirit-possession,  primitive  be- 
lief in,  131. 


Spiritual,  as  rational,  52  ;  exag- 
gerated antinomy  between  the 
physical  and,  301. 

Spiritual  experience,  the  power 
of  the  church  lay  in,  184, 
185. 

Stanley,  A.  P.,  his  reference  to 
Abraham  as  a  sheik,  87. 

Starbuck,  Professor,  his  Psycho- 
logy of  Religion,  195. 

Stepben,  Sir  James,  his  essays, 
186. 

Stephen,  Leslie,  290. 

Strauss,  David  Friedrich,  his 
Leben  Jesu  mentioned,  3  ; 
the  Frankenstein  of  Hegelian- 
ism,  10,  11  ;  brought  German 
influence  in  theology  under 
suspicion  in  England,  10,  11. 

Strudwick,  James  and  Anne,  the 
story  of,  110,  113. 

Submerged  tenth,  have  found 
voice,  101. 

Sunday-school,  inception  and 
growth  of,  43. 

Sunrise,  significance  of  the 
word,  256. 

Supernatural,  the,  14,  28  ;  the 
natural  and  the,  51,  292, 297  ; 
is  beyond  our  experience  of 
nature,  298. 

Superstition,  tendency  of  men 
to  cherish,  18,  133. 

Survival  of  the  fittest,  29. 

Swabia,  peasants  slain  in,  100. 

Swedenborg,  Emanuel,  antici- 
pated the  nebular  hypothesis, 
17. 

Swete,  Professor,  cited,  146; 
quoted,  150. 

Swinburne,  A.  C,  quoted,  67,  68. 

Symbols,  Christian,  those  that 
express  experience  are  likely 
to  abide,  244. 

System-building,  of  Western 
Christendom,  82,  83  ;  of  the 
Reformation,  83 ;  arraign- 
ment of,  in  the  last  two  gen- 


INDEX 


343 


erations,  80,  87  ;  some  look 
for  new,  124, 129. 

Systems,  inadequacy  of,  against 
time,  124,  129  ;  question 
whether  their  day  is  not  past, 
125 ;  of  theology  compared 
to  a  tree,  129 ;  struggle  be- 
tween spirit  and,  108. 

Tauler,  John,  mentioned,  170, 
178 ;  contrasted  with  John 
Wickliffe,  177. 

Teleology,  a  larger  place  found 
for,  by  evolution,  42,  140. 

Telephone,  long  distance,  298. 

Tennyson,  Alfred,  his  "  infant 
crying  in  the  night,"  cited, 
07 ;  quoted  on  faith,  71 ; 
prophet  of  idea  of  evolution 
in  theology,  135 ;  quoted, 
110. 

Terms  persist  because  they  are 
symbols  of  experience,  258. 

Tertullian  and  the  Church,  173  f . 

Tess  of  the  D'  Urbervilles,  theolo- 
gical aspect  of,  04. 

Thackeray,  W.  M.,  on  Dickens, 
312. 

Theatre,  the,  197. 

Theism,  principle  of  continuity 
becoming  to,  40. 

Theological  thought,  the  present 
state  of  popular,  47-71. 

Theologian,  the,  as  a  novelist's 
lay  figure,  0;  his  rights  re- 
cognized by  the  apostles  of 
the  doctrine  of  development, 
34. 

Theology,  Macaulay  on  its  not 
being  a  progressive  science, 
1,  2,  0,  15,  18;  based  upon 
revelation,  2  ;  German  influ- 
ence in,  3,  4,  9-11 ;  slow  dis- 
semination of  the  results  of 
investigation  in,  5 ;  attitude 
of  the  "  man  of  letters  "  to- 
ward, 5,  0 ;  new  era  of  theo- 
logical development,  9  ff .  ; 
seeming  conflict  between  sci- 


ence and,  15,  30  ff. ;  advan- 
tage to  science  from,  10-18  ; 
as  intolerant  of  development, 
18,  20,  121 ;  as  capable  of 
development,  19,  21 ;  confu- 
sion of,  in  the  nineteenth 
century,  20;  importance  of 
its  place  in  modern  thought, 
20,  27,  34,  39,  49,  02  ;  relation 
of  new  principles  to,  27  ;  early 
effect  of  the  doctrine  of  evo- 
lution on,  28-30  ;  and  dogma, 
31  ;  grounds  for  the  confident 
and  expectant  attitude  of,  34- 
45 ;  its  adoption  of  the  his- 
toric method,  40  ;  method  of 
development  theory  an  aid 
to,  40-42 ;  substantiation  of, 
by  evolution,  41,  48  ;  fashion 
in,  48  ;  lack  of  system  in,  50, 
62 ;  in  recent  fiction  and 
poetry,  02-71  ;  use  of  fiction 
in  discussion  of,  03  ;  as  mori- 
bund, 121 ;  material  of,  mul- 
tiplied by  religious  experi- 
ence, 122,  123;  agnosticism 
and,  125 ;  system  of,  must 
remain  partial,  128 ;  systems 
of,  compared  to  a  tree,  129  ; 
secret  of  its  permanence  lies 
in  a  principle,  130  ;  progress 
of,  through  recognition  of  the 
Spirit,  232,  233. 

Thesis,  the,  124-141. 

Thirty-nine  Articles,  59. 

Thompson,  Francis,  quoted, 
69. 

Thomson  James,  quoted,  04 ; 
his  City  of  Dreadful  Night, 
315. 

6pr]crK(ia,  77. 

Tintoretto,  his  Judgment  Scene 
mentioned,  13. 

Total  depravity,  59 ;  doctrine 
of,  overstates  a  great  truth, 
59. 

Tractarian,  not  bound  by  tradi- 
tion, 2. 


344 


INDEX 


Tractarian  movement  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  185,  186. 

Tradition,  finds  worshipers 
among  theologians,  34  ;  in  ill 
repute  in  last  two  genera- 
tions, 86. 

Transcendent  Cause,  a,  man  a 
believer  in,  132,  134. 

Transubstantiation,  Sir  Thomas 
More's  faith  in,  1,  2. 

Tree,  systems  of  theology  and 
philosophy,  compared  to  a, 
129. 

Trevelyan,  Sir  George  O.,  on 
Wesley,  188  n. 

Trinitarian,  danger  for  the,  54  ; 
the  "  mere  logicker,"  54  ;  his 
Sabellianism,  55;  difficulties 
of  the,  55. 

Trinity,  conception  bordering 
on  tritheism,  14 ;  Hegel's 
philosophy  of  the,  197 ;  doc- 
trine of  the,  expresses  experi- 
ence, 263. 

Tritheism,  54. 

Truth,  freedom  of  faith  given 
by,  222,  253 ;  search  for,  is  the 
leading  of  the  Spirit,  254. 

Tubingen  School,  works  of,  are 
sealed  books  to  many  English 
readers,  11. 

Tuckney,  52. 

Tulloch,  John,  his  Religious 
Thought  in  Britain  quoted,  3. 

Tyler,  Wat,  his  insurrection,  97. 

Tyndall,  John,  theologian  and 
scientist,  17. 

Ultimate   Cause,  demand  for  a 

recognition  of,  is  irresistible, 

134. 
Ultimate   Force  and  Immanent 

Spirit  are  one,  220. 
Ultimate   source   of    authority, 

286,  314-319;  is  found  in  the 

Spirit,  318. 
Unitarian,  and  Deist,  53  ;  and 

Pantheist,  53. 


Unitarianism,     rationalism    of, 

246. 
Unitarians,  3. 
Unknowable,  the,  29. 

Vaughan,  R.  A.,  his  Hours  with 
the  Mystics  cited,  169,  179. 

Vital  energy  of  the  divine  na- 
ture,    147 ;     in    all    energy, 

148. 

Wage-earner  is  seeking  for  eco- 
nomic privileges,  104. 

War  of  1812  mentioned,  205. 

Ward,  Mrs.  Humphry,  her  Rob- 
ert Elsmere  cited,  6 ;  theolo- 
gical aspect  of  her  Robert  Ms- 
mere,  62,  63. 

Watson,  W.,  quoted,  118. 

Webb,  Sidney,  his  History  of 
Trades  Unionism  cited,  104. 

Wendt,  H.  H.,  his  Teachings  of 
Jesus  cited,  155. 

Wesley,  John,  mentioned,  187, 
188  n. 

Wheel  of  things,  idea  that  soci- 
ety is  bound  to,  106, 107. 

Whichcote,  quoted,  52. 

Whitefield,  George,  mentioned, 
187. 

Wickliffe,  John,  mysticism  of, 
176;  contrasted  with  John 
Tauler,  177 ;  his  church  in 
Lutterworth,  240. 

Wilberforce,  William,  men- 
tioned, 188. 

Williams,  Rowland,  his  part  in 
the  heretical  Essays  and  Re- 
views, 288. 

Wilson,  H.  B.,  his  part  in  the 
heretical  Essays  and  Reviews, 
288. 

Wisdom,  Book  of,  quoted,  150. 

Witness  of  Scripture,  the,  142- 
167. 

Word,  the,  Christ's  difficulty  in 
interpreting  to  his  followers, 
152. 


INDEX 


345 


Word  of  God,  Robinson's  say- 
ing- that  more  truth  might  yet 
break  out  from,  13. 

Words,  the  new  meaning  of  some 
old,  255-287 ;  significance  of, 
255. 

Wordsworth,  William,  his  influ- 
ence in  new  era  of  thought, 
41  ;  quoted,  206. 

World,  the,  and  the  church,  58- 
62. 

Worth  of  Human  Life,  Upon 
the,  article  cited,  112  n. 


Wiirtemberg,  peasants  slain  in, 
100. 

Young,  Arthur,  his  Journeys  in 
France  cited,  102. 

Young  Men's  Christian  Associa- 
tion, 43. 

Young  Women's  Christian  Asso- 
ciation, 43. 

Zeitgeist,  the,  22-46. 
Zophar,  mentioned,  27. 
Zwingli,  Ulrich,  280. 


ElectrotyPed  and  printed  by  H.  O.  Houghton  &*  Co. 
Cambridge,  Mass.,  U.S.  A. 


•inceton  Theological  Seminary-Speer  Library 


1    1012  01130  4930 


Date  Due 

(f> 

